 |
 William
Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
turned a flair for roping into a career based on
off-the-cuff, witty commentary on current events.
That career made him a star in both silent and
sound movies, a very popular lecturer, a radio
star, a newspaper and magazine columnist, and a
friend of the very politicians he commented
about. |
 Joseph
Pulitzer used the sale of his stake
in a German-language St. Louis newspaper to
establish the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
which he used to launch crusades against
government corruption. He purchased the failing
New York World in 1883 and soon turned
it into a very profitable paper. His will endowed
a fund to reward excellence in journalism, and
the first Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 1917. |
 Leonard
Simon Nimoy spent more than ten
years playing bit, often uncredited, parts in
movies and making appearances in various
television series before landing the role that
made him famous -- the half-Vulcan-half-human Mr.
Spock in Star Trek. He is also an
accomplished photographer and poet. |
 Douglas
Fairbanks began his movie career in
1915, and was the third highest paid actor in
Hollywood by 1918. His marriage to
"America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford
raised his star even higher, and it shone even
brighter after he began making
"swashbucklers like The Mark of Zorro
and Robin Hood. |
 Marie Georges Jean Méliès was a magician by trade who considered
the cinema a perfect vehicle to escape for
an audience. To that end, he pioneered the use of
many special effects, including stop action,
double exposure, and split screen. He was also
the first filmmaker to use production boards and
storyboards. |
 Bud
Abbott (William Alexander Abbott)
was working as a cashier at a theater in Brooklyn
when he was asked to substitute for Lou
Costello's straight man. The two men meshed
immediately, the act was a smash with the
audience, and the team of Abbott & Costello
was born. |
 Ludovico
Ariosto wrote five comedies and
seven satires in his lifetime, but is best known
for the epic poem Orlando Furioso, whose
plot revolves around the conflict of Christian
versus Moor, specifically the war between
Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, Agramante, King
of North Africa, and Marsilio, King of Spain. |
 Edwin
S. Porter was one of the first
directors to shoot at night, and the first to
break from the typical
"documentary-style" film. In 1903, he
directed The Great Train Robbery, the
first movie to tell a story, as well as probably
the first in which actors actually followed a
script. |
 The John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
opened to the public on September 8, 1971, and
today serves as the cultural hub of Washington,
D.C., and as one of the premier facilities for
the education of the general public about the
performing arts. |
 Dante
Alighieri is best known for his epic
poem, La Commedia (Divine
Comedy), which was written from 1300 to
1321. The poem's main theme is life after death,
and Dante himself is the chief character. It is
divided into three main sections -- the Inferno
(Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and
the Paradisio (Paradise). |
 Plutarch
is believed to have been responsible for at least
227 books and treatises of various lengths. Of
these his Morals and Parallel Lives
are the best known. Parallel Lives was
for centuries the main source of knowledge of the
Greco-Roman world. |
 James
Whitcomb Riley was known as the
"Hoosier Poet" because many of his
poems were written in the dialect of his home
state, Indiana. Although he authored
approximately 1,000 poems in his lifetime, he
gained most of his fame on the speaking circuit. |
 Walt
Whitman published the first edition
of Leaves of Grass, containing just 12
poems and a preface, in 1855. By the time of his
death in 1892 he had published seven subsequent
revised and enlarged editions of the collection. |
 James
Russell Lowell was a noted poet,
editor, literary critic, lecturer, teacher,
scholar, social reformer, and diplomat. His
best-known works are A Fable for Critics,
The Biglow Papers, and The Vision of
Sir Launfal. |
 John
Greenleaf Whittier had more than 80
of his poems published in various newspapers and
magazines by the time he was twenty. A devout
abolitionist, most of his early works reflected
his his anti-slavery views,
including Justice and Expediency. After
the Civil War his works focused on religion,
nature, and rural life, including Snow-Bound. |
