Famous People of Maryland

Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves John Sumner Blake (1838-1917) and Emily "Emma" Johnstone (1861-1927). He was the only surviving child of eight who all died in infancy. In 1894 the family moved to 414 North Eden Street, and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake worked earning US$9.00 weekly as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks. • Eubie Blake Books • Eubie Blake Discography

Over the years, various authors have suggested that Booth might have escaped his pursuers and subsequently died many years later under a pseudonym. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth family of actors from Maryland. He was also a Confederate sympathizer and expressed vehement dissatisfaction with the South's defeat in the Civil War. He opposed Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves. • John Wilkes Booth Books

Bushman, like many of his contemporaries, broke into the film business via the stage. He was performing at Broncho Billy Anderson's Essanay Studios in Chicago, Illinois, where he was first noticed for his muscular, sculpted frame. He appeared in nearly 200 feature film roles—more than 175 films before 1920, and 17 in his screen debut year of 1911 alone. He also worked for the Vitagraph studio before signing with Metro in 1915.

Bushman was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a young man Bushman joined the Maryland Athletic Club and began a body building regiman that would give him his famous film physique. He cited Sandow as one of his body building influences. In New York, he worked as a sculptor's model often posing in the nude in sessions.

In 1902, Bushman married seamstress Josephine Fladune. By the launch of his film career, the couple had five children. In 1918, Bushman was the subject of a national scandal as his affair with longtime costar Beverly Bayne became public.  • Francis X. Bushman Books • Francis X. Bushman Movies

His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is also part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles, a Major League Baseball team. He officially is the Orioles' Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs.

A week after the 9/11 attack, on The O'Reilly Factor, Clancy stated that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for September 11 due to their "gutting" of the CIA.[3] Clancy has also associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George W. Bush administration, and has been critical of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. • Tom Clancy Books

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro and Cordova, in a shack east of Tappers Corner and west of Tuckahoe Creek. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant. She died when Douglass was about seven and Douglass lived with his maternal grandmother Betty Bailey. His mother's ancestors likely had Native American heritage. • Frederick Douglass Books

Although his music is often, though controversially, described as minimalist, he distances himself from this label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." Although his early, mature music is minimalist, he has evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "Classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.

Glass is a prolific composer: He has written works for his own musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (for which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, eight symphonies, eight concertos, solo works, string quartets, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards. • Philip Glass Discography • Philip Glass Books • Philip Glass Movies & TV

Goldberg also frequently appears on television, on such shows as Good Morning America, Nightline, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Real Time with Bill Maher, Larry King Live, Your World with Neil Cavuto and most recently the Glenn Beck Program and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He is also a frequent participant on bloggingheads.tv. Goldberg has twice-weekly column at National Review Online, which is syndicated to numerous papers across the United States, and at Townhall.com. He also writes an occasional "Goldberg File" column at National Review that is typically longer, and more culture or interest oriented. Goldberg is also a frequent poster at National Review Online's blog The Corner.

Aside from being a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, he has written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Public Interest, The Wilson Quarterly, The Weekly Standard, the New York Post, The Women’s Quarterly, and Slate. The Los Angeles Times added Goldberg to its editorial lineup in 2005. • Jonah Goldberg Books  

Raised Roman Catholic, Billie Holiday had a difficult childhood, which greatly affected her life and career. Not much is known for certain about her early life, and her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, was later revealed to contain many inaccuracies. • Billie Holiday Books • Billie Holiday Movies & TV • Billie Holiday Discography

Following Hopkins' death, the Baltimore Sun wrote a lengthy obituary which closed thus: "In the death of Johns Hopkins a career has been closed which affords a rare example of successful energy in individual accumulations, and of practical beneficence in devoting the gains thus acquired to the public." His contribution to the university that has become his greatest legacy was, by all accounts, the largest philanthropic bequest ever made to an American educational institution.• Johns Hopkins Books

Marshall was married twice; to Vivian "Buster" Burey from 1929 until her death in February 1955 and to Cecilia Suyat from December 1955 until his own death in 1993. He had two sons from his second marriage; Thurgood Marshall, Jr., who is a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, and John W. Marshall, who is a former United States Marshals Service Director and since 2002 has served as Virginia Secretary of Public Safety under Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. • Thurgood Marshall Books

Ripken surpassed the 56-year-old record when he played in his 2,131st game on September 6, 1995 between the Orioles and California Angels in front of a sold-out crowd at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.To make the feat even more memorable, Ripken hit a home run in the previous night's game that tied Gehrig's record and another home run in his 2,131st game, which fans later voted as Major League Baseball's "Most Memorable Moment" in MLB • Cal Ripken Jr. Books

And if Robert Creamer's highly readable Babe (1974) is still the benchmark biography, Montville (Ted Williams, 2004) brings fresh observations to his subject, one being that Ruth probably suffered from attention-deficit disorder, which accounts for his inexhaustible energy for everything from baseball to food to alcohol to sex, not necessarily in that order. And in his vivid account of the years Ruth spent at St. Mary's orphanage in Baltimore, Montville gives readers the measure of what made the man. Montville has also carefully sifted the factual from the hearsay, leaving us with a volume that's reliable, readable, and deserving of a place in the sports or American culture collection. Alan Moores • Babe Ruth Books

In his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers like Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship. • Frank Zappa Website• Frank Zappa Discography • Frank Zappa Books