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Michael Brown (writer)
Michael Brown (December 14, 1920 – June 11, 2014) was an American composer, lyricist, writer, director, producer, and performer. He was born in Mexia, Texas. His musical career began in New York cabaret, performing first at Le Ruban Bleu. In the 1960s, he was a producer of industrial musicals for major American corporations such as J.C. Penney and DuPont. For the DuPont pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair, Brown wrote and produced a musical revue, '' The Wonderful World of Chemistry'' staged 48 times a day by two simultaneous casts in adjacent theaters. For years, he maintained a reunion directory of the cast and crew, which included Robert Downey, Sr. as a stage manager. 2005 mailing: “After all, it was a remarkable time in all of our lives. We can be fairly certain nothing like it will be seen again. Love all round, Mike.” Several of his songs have entered the American repertoire, including "Lizzie Borden" and "The John Birch Society," which were popularized ...
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Mexia
Mexia ( ) is a city in Limestone County, Texas, United States. The population was 6,893 at the 2020 census. The city's motto, based on the fact that outsiders tend to mispronounce the name , is "A great place to live, no matter how you pronounce it." Named after General José Antonio Mexía, a Mexican hero for the Republic of Texas Army during the Texas Revolution, the town was founded near his estate. Nearby attractions include Fort Parker Historical recreation, the Confederate Reunion grounds, and Mexia State Supported Living Center (formerly Mexia State School), which began as a prisoner of war camp for members of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps during World War II. Mexia is also home to the Mexia Public Schools Museum, one of a few museums dedicated to the historical and social significance of a Texas public school system. Late model Anna Nicole Smith attended Mexia Public Schools. Mexia hosts a large Juneteenth celebration every year. Geography According t ...
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House Of Flowers (musical)
''House of Flowers'' is a musical by Harold Arlen (music and lyrics) and Truman Capote (lyrics and book). A short story of the same name was published in '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' (1958). Synopsis The story concerns two neighboring bordellos that battle for business in an idealized Haitian setting. One of the sex workers, Ottilie, turns down a rich lord to marry a poor mountain boy named Royal. Her madam plots to keep her by having Royal sealed in a barrel and tossed into the ocean. Royal escapes the watery death by taking refuge on the back of a turtle. The lovers are eventually married and live happily ever after. Production history This was Capote's first musical, and was the first theatrical production outside of Trinidad and Tobago to feature the new Caribbean instrument—the steel pan. It was produced by Saint Subber who was also responsible for ''Kiss Me, Kate'' and seven plays by Neil Simon. In the early 1950s Truman Capote became further involved in the performing art ...
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New York Public Library For The Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, is located in Manhattan, New York City, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side, between the Metropolitan Opera House and the Vivian Beaumont Theater. It houses one of the world's largest collections of materials relating to the performing arts. It is one of the four research centers of the New York Public Library's Research library system, and it is also one of the branch libraries. History Founding and original configuration Originally the collections that formed The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (LPA) were housed in two buildings. The Research collections on Dance, Music, and Theatre were located at the New York Public Library Main Branch, now named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, and the circulating music collection was located in the 58th Street Library. A separate center to house performing arts ...
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Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias DBE (''née'' Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet (formerly the Sadler's Wells Theatre Company), eventually being appointed ''prima ballerina assoluta'' of the company by Queen Elizabeth II. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England and China, where her father was transferred for his work. Her training in Shanghai was with Russian expatriate dancer Georgy Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at the age of 14, she was invited to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School by Ninette de Valois. She succeeded Alicia Markova as prima ballerina of the company in 1935. The Vic-Wells choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, wrote numerous parts for Fonteyn and her partner, Robert Helpmann, with whom she danced from the 1930s to the 1940s. In 1946, the co ...
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Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for '' The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for ''The Moonstone'' (1868), which has been proposed as the first modern English detective novel. Born to the London painter William Collins and his wife, Harriet Geddes, he moved with them to Italy when he was twelve, living there and in France for two years, learning both Italian and French. He worked initially as a tea merchant. After ''Antonina'', his first novel, appeared in 1850, Collins met Charles Dickens, who became a friend and mentor. Some of his work appeared in Dickens's journals ''Household Words'' and '' All the Year Round''. They also collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins gained financial stability and an international following by the 1860s, but became addicted to the opium he took for his gout, so that his health and writing quality declined in the 1870s ...
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Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and to induct the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at only select American colleges and universities. It was founded at the College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, as the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity and was among the earliest collegiate fraternal societies. Since its inception, 17 U.S. Presidents, 40 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel Laureates have been inducted members. Phi Beta Kappa () stands for ('), which means "Wisdom it. love of knowledgeis the guide it. helmsmanof life". Membership Phi Beta Kappa has chapters in only about 10% of American higher learning institutions, and only about 10% of these schools' Arts and Sciences graduates are invited to join the society. ...
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Baby Doe Tabor
Elizabeth McCourt Tabor (September 1854 – March 7, 1935), better known as Baby Doe, was the second wife of Colorado pioneer businessman Horace Tabor. Her rags-to-riches and back to rags again story made her a well-known figure in her own day, and inspired an opera and a Hollywood movie based on her life. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, she moved to Colorado in the mid-1870s with her first husband, Harvey Doe, whom she divorced for drinking, gambling, frequenting brothels, and being unable to provide a living. She then moved to Leadville, Colorado, where she met Horace Tabor, a wealthy silver magnate almost twice her age. In 1883, he divorced his first wife, Augusta Tabor, to whom he had been married for 25 years, and married Baby Doe in Washington, D.C., during his brief stint as a US senator, after which they took up residence in Denver. His divorce and remarriage to the young and beautiful Baby Doe caused a scandal in 1880s Colorado. Although Tabor was one of the wealthiest men ...
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Chang And Eng Bunker
Chang Bunker and Eng Bunker (May 11, 1811 – January 17, 1874) were Siamese-American conjoined twin brothers whose fame propelled the expression " Siamese twins" to become synonymous for conjoined twins in general. They were widely exhibited as curiosities and were "two of the nineteenth century's most studied human beings". The brothers were born with Chinese ancestry in Siam (now known as Thailand) and were brought to the United States in 1829. Physicians inspected them as they became known to American and European audiences in " freak shows". Newspapers and the public were initially sympathetic to them, and within three years they left the control of their managers, who they thought were cheating them, and toured on their own. In early exhibitions, they appeared exotic and displayed their athleticism; they later held conversations in English in a more dignified parlor setting. In 1839, after a decade of financial success, the twins quit touring and settled near Mount Airy, ...
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Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s,Obituary '' Variety'', October 4, 1944. famous for founding the Foursquare Church. McPherson pioneered the use of broadcast mass media for wider dissemination of both religious services and appeals for donations, using radio to draw in both additional audience and revenue with the growing appeal of popular entertainment and incorporating stage techniques into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple, an early megachurch. In her time, she was the most publicized Protestant evangelist, surpassing Billy Sunday and other predecessors. She conducted public faith healing demonstrations involving tens of thousands of participants. McPherson's view of the United States as a nation founded and sustained by divine inspiration influenced later pastors. National news coverage f ...
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Joseph Force Crater
Joseph Force Crater (January 5, 1889 – disappeared August 6, 1930; declared legally dead June 6, 1939) was a New York State Supreme Court Justice who mysteriously vanished amid a political scandal. He was last seen leaving a restaurant on West 45th Street in Manhattan and entered popular culture as one of the most mysterious missing persons cases of the 20th century. Despite massive publicity, the case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater disappeared. Early life and legal career Joseph Crater was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of Frank Ellsworth Crater and the former Leila Virginia Montague. Crater was educated at Lafayette College (class of 1910) and Columbia University. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. During his time at Columbia, Crater met Stella Mance Wheeler, who was at the time married, and helped her get a divorce. The pair married shortly thereafter in spring 1917. Crater's official title was Just ...
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Death Of Starr Faithfull
Starr Faithfull (born Marian Starr Wyman, January 27, 1906–c. June 6, 1931) was an American socialite and a model for the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency whose mysterious drowning death in 1931 at the age of 25 became a much-covered tabloid story. Newspapers published allegations that she had been sexually abused as a child by Andrew James Peters, a wealthy, prominent politician and former mayor of Boston (1918–1922). Peters was reportedly suspected of murdering her. Investigators were unable to determine whether her death was a homicide or a suicide, and her death remains unsolved. Faithfull was found dead on the beach at Long Beach, New York, on the south shore of Long Island, on the morning of June 8, 1931. An autopsy found that Faithfull died by drowning, but she also had many bruises, apparently caused by beating or rough handling, and a large dose of a sedative in her system. Investigators initially thought her death was a homicide and that she had either been pushed ...
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John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He led the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer, who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide. Dillinger courted publicity. The media ran exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, and cast him as a Robin Hood. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger as a campaign platform to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.Elliott J. Gorn, ''Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One'' (2009), p 101 ...
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