Ian Mikardo

Ian Mikardo, commonly known as Mik, was a British Labour Member of Parliament. An ardent socialist and a Zionist, he remained a backbencher throughout his four decades in the House of Commons. He was a member of National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in 1950–59 and 1960–78, and Chairman of the Labour Party in 1970–1971. He was also Chairman of the International Committee of the Labour Party in 1973–78, Vice-President of the Socialist International (1978–1983) and Honorary President (1983–1993).

Mikardo was a Labour Member of Parliament for Reading 1945–50, Reading South 1950–55, Reading 1955–59, Poplar 1964–74, Bethnal Green and Bow 1974–83 and Bow and Poplar 1983–87. He was Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, 1966–70. He issued many pamphlets, the most famous were Keep Left (1947) and Keeping Left with Dick Crossman, Michael Foot and Jo Richardson, 1950. He was also a Fabian essayist, a staunch friend of Israel, as well as friend and mentor to many in the Labour movement, where he made a great impact.

Lord Killanin

Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin was an Irish journalist, author, sports official, and the sixth President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Ron Hayward

Ronald George Hayward was a leading activist in the British Labour Party.

Born near Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, Hayward served in the Royal Air Force during World War II.

At the end of the war, Hayward became the Labour Party's secretary and agent in Banbury. In 1949 he moved to Kent, where he began a friendship with local MP Arthur Bottomley. The following year, Bottomley ensured his appointment as the party's London assistant regional organizer, and in 1959 he became organizer for the Southern region. He served in this role until 1969, when he became a National Agent.

In 1972, he narrowly defeated Gwyn Morgan to become General Secretary of the Labour Party.

As General Secretary, Hayward opposed entry to the Common Market and supported unilateral nuclear disarmament. He strongly supported the Presidency of Salvador Allende in Chile, and after its overthrow became friends with Hortensia Bussi, Allende's former wife. Privately, he was very critical of the Labour Party leadership's lack of response to the Chilean Coup.

In the 1980s he opposed the Militant Tendency, but was reluctant to expel its supporters from the party. He was fiercely opposed to the Gang of Four, who led the split which formed the Social Democratic Party.

Alan Sillitoe

Alan Sillitoe  was an English writer and one of the so-called "angry young men" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his debut novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and his early short story "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", both of which were adapted into films.

Sillitoe was born in Nottingham to working-class parents, Christopher Sillitoe and Sabina (née Burton). Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, his father worked at the Raleigh Bicycle Company's factory in the town. His father was illiterate, violent, and unsteady with his jobs, and the family was often on the brink of starvation.

Sillitoe left school at the age of 14, having failed the entrance examination to grammar school. He worked at the Raleigh factory for the next four years, spending his free time reading prodigiously and being a "serial lover of local girls". He joined the Air Training Corps in 1942, then the Royal Air Force, albeit too late to serve in the Second World War. He served as a wireless operator in Malaya during the Emergency. After returning to Britain he was planning to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force when it was discovered that he had tuberculosis. He spent 16 months in an RAF hospital.

Pensioned off at the age of 21 on 45 shillings (£2.25) a week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover. In 1955, while living in Mallorca with the American poet Ruth Fainlight, whom he married in 1959, and in contact with the poet Robert Graves, Sillitoe started work on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of Ernest Hemingway, the book conveys the attitudes and situation of a young factory worker faced with the inevitable end of his youthful philandering. As with John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and John Braine's Room at the Top, the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain and the lack of opportunities for the working class. It was adapted as a film by Karel Reisz in 1960, with Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton; the screenplay was written by Sillitoe.

Sillitoe's story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which concerns the rebellion of a borstal boy with a talent for running, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1959. It was also adapted into a film, in 1962, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Tom Courtenay. Sillitoe again wrote the screenplay.

With Fainlight he had a child, David. They later adopted another, Susan. Sillitoe lived at various times in Kent, London and Montpellier. In London he was friendly with the bookseller Bernard Stone (who had been born in Nottingham a few years before Sillitoe) and became one of the bohemian crowd that congregated at Stone's Turret Bookshop on Kensington Church Walk.

In the 1960s Sillitoe was celebrated in the Soviet Union as a spokesman for the "oppressed worker" in the West. Invited to tour the country, he visited several times in the 1960s and in 1968 he was asked to address the Congress of Soviet Writers' Unions, where he denounced Soviet human rights abuses, many of which he had witnessed.

In 1990 Sillitoe was awarded an honorary degree by Nottingham Polytechnic, now Nottingham Trent University. The city's older Russell Group university, the University of Nottingham, also awarded him an honorary D.Litt. in 1994. In 2006 his best-known play was staged at the university's Lakeside Arts theatre in an in-house production.

Sillitoe wrote many novels and several volumes of poems. His autobiography, Life Without Armour, which was critically acclaimed on publication in 1995, offers a view of his squalid childhood. In an interview Sillitoe claimed that "A writer, if he manages to earn a living at what he's doing, even if it's a very poor living, acquires some of the attributes of the old-fashioned gentleman (if I can be so silly)."

Gadfly in Russia, an account of his travels in Russia spanning 40 years, was published in 2007.[11] In 2008 London Books republished A Start in Life in its London Classics series to mark the author's 80th birthday. Sillitoe appeared on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 on 25 January 2009.

Sillitoe's long-held desire for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to be remade for a contemporary filmgoing audience was never achieved, despite strong efforts. Danny Brocklehurst was to adapt the book and Sillitoe gave his blessing to the project, but Tony Richardson's estate and Woodfall Films prevented it from going ahead.

Sillitoe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997.

Sillitoe died of cancer on 25 April 2010 at Charing Cross Hospital in London at the age of 82.

André Roussin

André Roussin was a French playwright. Born in Marseille, he was elected to the Académie française on 12 April 1973.

Billy Griffith

Stewart Cathie Griffith, known as Billy Griffith, was an English cricketer and cricket administrator. He played in three Test matches for England in 1948 and 1949.

He played first-class cricket for Cambridge University (1934–1936), Surrey (1934), Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) (1935/1936–1953), Sussex (1937–1954) and England (1947/1948 – 1948/1949).

Griffith was born in Wandsworth, London, and educated at Dulwich College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He scored over 1,200 runs during four years in the 1st XI at Dulwich, despite being in the shadow of Hugh Bartlett, and he became a capable wicket-keeper. He won his blue in his second year at Cambridge. He toured Australia and New Zealand with the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) under Errol Holmes's captaincy in (1935/1936 – 1936/1937). He lost his Cambridge place to Paul Gibb in 1937.

After graduating from Cambridge, he returned to Dulwich as cricket master and he became the first choice wicket-keeper for Sussex in 1939.

He was commissioned into the Officers' Training Corps in 1938, and transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps in 1939. He later served in the Glider Pilot Regiment with Hugh Bartlett. As second-in-command he carried the commander of the 6th Airborne Divisioj, Major-General Richard "Windy" Gale (coincidentally, he was also from Wandsworth), into Normandy during Operation Overlord, crash landing after being caught in a storm. He took part in the Battle of Arnhem and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. He remained in the Territorial Army (TA) after the war, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He was appointed captain-secretary of Sussex in 1946. Although he relinquished the captaincy after one year, his wicket-keeping form earned him selection for the MCC tour of the West Indies in 1947–48. On his Test debut he was used as a makeshift opener as three senior batsmen were ill, and made 140 in six hours. It made him the only England player to make his maiden century on his Test debut. He toured South Africa (under F.G. Mann) in 1948–49 and played in the final two Tests, the only wicket-keeper to be preferred to Godfrey Evans between 1946 and 1959 when he was available to play. On his return, he retired to take up an appointment as the cricket correspondent of The Sunday Times. After two years in this role, he was appointed by the MCC in 1952 as one of two assistant secretaries to Ronnie Aird at Lord's.

He succeeded Aird as the Secretary of the MCC in 1962, and he oversaw the abolition of the amateur status, the introduction of one-day cricket, the creation of the Test and County Cricket Board, the Cricket Council and the 'D'Oliveira Affair'. His busy schedule in 1962–63 prevented him from managing the MCC tour of Australia in 1962–63, except for one month when he flew out to relieve the Duke of Norfolk. Aware of M.J.K. Smith's natural caution on the MCC tour of Australia in 1965–66, Griffith was given extraordinary powers granting him overall control of cricket while managering the tour. Fortunately, he did not resort to these as he preferred more diplomatic means, but he urged attacking cricket in the tour games, notably against Western Australia. Smith asked him when he should declare, Griffith said "Now!" and the MCC won by nine runs in the last minute. The deadpan Smith observed "that's the last time I take the ruddy manager's advice on a declaration."

He retired in 1974, and he later served as Chairman of the Friends of Arundel Castle Cricket Club. His son, Mike Griffith, also captained Sussex.

Billy Griffith died in Felpham, West Sussex, following a long illness in 1993, aged 78.

Doc Watson

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's fingerstyle and flatpicking skills, as well as his knowledge of traditional American music, were highly regarded.

Watson was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina. According to Watson on his three-CD biographical recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!", presumably in reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's companion, Doctor Watson. The name stuck.

An eye infection caused Watson to lose his vision before his second birthday. He attended North Carolina's school for the blind, the Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In a 1989 radio interview with Terry Gross on the Fresh Air show on National Public Radio, Watson explained how he got his first guitar. His father told him that if he and his brother David chopped down all the small dead chestnut trees along the edge of their field, he could sell the wood to a tannery. Watson bought a Sears Silvertone from Sears Roebuck with his earnings, while his brother bought a new suit. Later in that same interview, Watson explained that his first high-quality guitar was a Martin D-18.

Watson's earliest influences were country roots musicians and groups such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. The first song he learned to play on the guitar was "When Roses Bloom in Dixieland", first recorded by the Carter Family in 1930. Watson stated in an interview with American Songwriter that, "Jimmie Rodgers was the first man that I started to claim as my favorite." Watson proved to be a natural musical talent and within months was performing on local street corners playing songs from the Delmore Brothers, Louvin Brothers, and Monroe Brothers alongside his brother Linny. By the time Watson reached adulthood, he had become a proficient acoustic and electric guitar player.

In 1953, Watson joined the Johnson City, Tennessee–based Jack Williams's country and western swing band on electric guitar. The band seldom had a fiddle player, but was often asked to play at square dances. Following the example of country guitarists Grady Martin and Hank Garland, Watson taught himself to play fiddle tunes on his Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. He later transferred the technique to acoustic guitar, and playing fiddle tunes became part of his signature sound. During his time with Jack Williams, Watson also supported his family as a piano tuner.

In 1960, as the American folk music revival grew, Watson took the advice of folk musicologist and Smithsonian curator Ralph Rinzler and began playing acoustic guitar and banjo exclusively. That move ignited Watson's career when he played on his first recording, Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Also of pivotal importance for his career was his February 11, 1961, appearance at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village. He subsequently began to tour as a solo performer and appeared at universities and clubs like the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Watson would eventually get his big break and rave reviews for his performance at the renowned Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island in 1963. Watson recorded his first solo album in 1964 and began performing with his son, Merle, the same year.

After the folk revival waned during the late 1960s, Watson's career was sustained by his performance of the Jimmy Driftwood song "Tennessee Stud" on the 1972 live album recording Will the Circle Be Unbroken. As popular as ever, Doc and Merle began playing as a trio with T. Michael Coleman on bass guitar in 1974. The trio toured the globe during the late seventies and early eighties, recording nearly fifteen albums between 1973 and 1985, and bringing Doc and Merle's unique blend of acoustic music to millions of new fans. In 1985, Merle died in a tractor accident on his family farm. Two years later Merle Fest was inaugurated in remembrance of him.

Watson played guitar in both flatpicking and fingerpicking style, but is best known for his flatpick work. His guitar playing skills, combined with his authenticity as a mountain musician, made him a highly influential figure during the folk music revival. Watson pioneered a fast and flashy bluegrass lead guitar style including fiddle tunes and crosspicking techniques which were adopted and extended by Clarence White, Tony Rice and many others. Watson was also an accomplished banjo player and sometimes accompanied himself on harmonica as well. Known also for his distinctive and rich baritone voice, Watson over the years developed a vast repertoire of mountain ballads, which he learned via the oral tradition of his home area in Deep Gap, North Carolina.

Watson played a Martin model D-18 guitar on his earliest recordings. In 1968, Watson began a relationship with Gallagher Guitars when he started playing their G-50 model. His first Gallagher, which Watson referred to as "Ol' Hoss", was on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee before residing at the Gallagher shop until 2012, when it was auctioned through Christie's on November 27, 2012. In 1974, Gallagher created a customized G-50 line to meet Watson's preferred specifications, which bears the Doc Watson name. In 1991, Gallagher customized a personal cutaway guitar for Watson that he played until his death and which he referred to as "Donald" in honor of Gallagher guitar's second-generation proprietor and builder, Don Gallagher. During his last years, Watson played a Dana Bourgeois dreadnought given to him by Ricky Skaggs for his 80th birthday. Another of Watson's favorites was his Arnold guitar, "The Jimmie", built by luthier John Arnold as a tribute to the famous 1926 Martin 00-18 played by Jimmie Rodgers.

In 1994, Watson teamed up with musicians Randy Scruggs and Earl Scruggs to contribute the classic song "Keep on the Sunny Side" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In his later life, Watson scaled back his touring schedule. He was generally joined onstage by his grandson (Merle's son) Richard, as well as longtime musical partners David Holt or Jack Lawrence. On June 19, 2007, Watson was accompanied by Australian guitar player Tommy Emmanuel at a concert at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. Watson also performed, accompanied by Holt and Richard, at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco in 2009, as he had done in several previous years.

Watson hosted the annual MerleFest music festival held every April at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The festival features a vast array of acoustic style music focusing on the folk, bluegrass, blues and old-time music genres. It was named in honor of Merle Watson and is one of the most popular acoustic music festivals in the world, drawing over 70,000 music fans each year.

Watson was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

On April 29, 2012, Watson performed with the Nashville Bluegrass Band on the Creekside Stage at MerleFest. It was an annual tradition for Watson to join the Nashville Bluegrass Band for a gospel set on the festival's Sunday morning. It would be his final performance.

On May 21, 2012, Watson fell at his home. He was not seriously injured in the fall, but an underlying medical condition prompted surgery on his colon. Watson died on May 29, 2012, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center of complications following the surgery at the age of 89.

Val Doonican

Michael Valentine Doonican was an Irish singer of traditional pop, easy listening, and novelty songs, who was noted for his warm and relaxed style. A crooner, he found popular success, especially in the United Kingdom where he had five successive Top 10 albums in the 1960s as well as several hits on the UK Singles Chart, including "Walk Tall", "Elusive Butterfly" and "If the Whole World Stopped Lovin.'" The Val Doonican Show, which featured his singing and a variety of guests, had a long and successful run on BBC Television from 1965 to 1986. Doonican won the Variety Club of Great Britain's BBC-TV Personality of the Year award three times.

Winthrop Sargeant

Winthrop Sargeant was an American music critic, violinist, and writer.

Sargeant was born in San Francisco, California on December 10, 1903. He studied violin in his native city with Albert Elkus, and with Felix Prohaska and Lucien Capet in Europe.

In 1922, at the age of 18, he became the youngest member of the San Francisco Symphony. He left there for New York City in 1926 where he became a violinist with the New York Symphony from 1926 to 1928 and later the New York Philharmonic from 1928 to 1930.

He abandoned his performance career in favor of pursuing a career as a journalist, critic, and writer in 1930. He wrote music criticism for Musical America, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and The New York American.

He was notably a music editor for Time magazine from 1937–1945, and he served as a senior writer for Life magazine from 1945–1949. In 1940, William Saroyan lists him among "contributing editors" at Time in the play, Love's Old Sweet Song.

From 1949–1972, he wrote the column Musical Events for The New Yorker. He continued to write music criticism for that publication until his death in 1986 at the age of 82. His books included Jazz: Hot and Hybrid (1938), Geniuses, goddesses, and people (1949), Listening to music (1958), Jazz: a history (1964), In spite of myself: a personal memoir (1970), Divas (1973).

Sargeant had a long-standing interest in the Bhagavad Gītā. Sargeant published his own English translation of the Bhagavad Gītā (see article) in 1979.

Sargeant died at his home in Salisbury, Connecticut on August 15, 1986.

Robert Carvel

Robert Carvel was a  political journalists.

The Scottish-born Carvel became political editor of the Evening Standard in 1960. Before that, he had worked for the Daily Express. Carvel retired from his post with the Evening Standard in 1985 but continued to serve as a political consultant for the paper.

He also worked for the British Broadcasting Corp. For many years he was the main anchor for BBC radio’s weekly program on events in Parliament, ″The Week in Westminster.″

He also appeared regularly on other news and current affairs programs on BBC radio and BBC TV, and his Scottish accent became well known to a generation of listeners and viewers.

He died in 1990.

Alexander Knox

Alexander Knox was a Canadian actor on stage, screen, and occasionally television. He was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe for his performance as Woodrow Wilson in the film Wilson (1944).

Although his liberal views forced him to leave Hollywood because of McCarthyism, Knox had a long career. He starred in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979 BBC mini-series) as Control, Chief of the Circus and George Smiley's mentor. He was also an author, writing adventure novels set in the Great Lakes area during the 19th century as well as plays and detective novels.

Knox was born in Strathroy, Ontario, where his father was the minister of the Presbyterian Church. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to perform on stage with the Boston Repertory Theatre. After the company folded following the stock market crash of 1929, Knox returned to London, Ontario, where, for the next two years, he worked as a reporter for The London Advertiser before moving to London, England, where, during the 1930s, he appeared in several films. He starred opposite Jessica Tandy in the 1940 Broadway production of Jupiter Laughs and, in 1944, he was chosen by Darryl F. Zanuck to star in Wilson (1944), the biographical film about American President Woodrow Wilson, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, during the McCarthy Era, his liberal views and work with the Committee for the First Amendment hurt his career, but he was not blacklisted, and he returned to Britain.

Knox had major roles in The Sea Wolf (1941), None Shall Escape (1944), Over 21 (1945), Sister Kenny (1946), Paula (1952), Europa '51 (1952), and The Vikings (1958), as well as supporting roles late in his career, such as in The Damned (1963), Modesty Blaise (1966), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Joshua Then and Now (1985; his last film role) and the miniseries Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

He depicted Governor Hudson Inverest in "The Latin Touch", the second episode of the first season of The Saint in 1962.

He wrote six adventure novels: Bride of Quietness (1933), Night of the White Bear (1971), The Enemy I Kill (1972), Raider's Moon, The Kidnapped Surgeon and Totem Dream. He also wrote plays and at least three detective novels under a pseudonym before 1945.

Knox was married to American actress Doris Nolan (1916–1998) from 1944 until his death in 1995. They starred together in the 1949 Broadway play The Closing Door, which Knox also wrote. They had a son Andrew Joseph Knox who became an actor and appeared in Doctor on the Go, and who was married to Imogen Hassall.

Knox died in Berwick-upon-Tweed from bone cancer on April 25, 1995.

Wardell Pomeroy

Wardell Baxter Pomeroy was an American sexologist. He was a frequent co-author with Alfred C. Kinsey.

Pomeroy was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the son of Percy W. and Mary A. Pomeroy. He graduated from Indiana University (BA, 1935; MA, 1942) and earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1954 from Columbia University. While working as a psychologist in an Indiana state hospital, he met Kinsey and came to work on his seminal sex-research project. Pomeroy personally recorded approximately 6,000 sexual histories. He was co-author with Kinsey on the landmark books Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). He went into the private practice of sex therapy in New York City in 1963 and wrote books about adolescent sexuality for popular consumption. In 1976, he became dean of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and an adjunct professor at California Medical School and California State University at Northridge. Pomeroy retired due to declining health in 1983 and died in Bloomington, Indiana of Lewy body dementia.

Gus Johnson

Gus Johnson was an American swing drummer in various jazz bands, born in Tyler, Texas, United States. After learning to play drums from his next-door neighbor, Johnson occasionally played professionally at the age of ten in the Lincoln Theater, and performed in various local groups, most notable McDavid's Blue Rhythm Band. Upon graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, Johnson moved to Kansas City, where he took up drumming full-time. He joined Jay McShann's Orchestra in 1938, with his music career being interrupted by his conscription into the military in 1943.

In 1945, Johnson returned from his stint in the military, and relocated to Chicago to perform in the Jesse Miller Band. Johnson played on Willie Dixon's debut album, Willie's Blues. He subsequently played alongside Count Basie, and was recorded on the album, Basie Rides Again, in 1952. Following a recovery from appendicitis, Johnson was featured in numerous groups and dozens of recordings in the 1960s. In 1972, his former bandmates from Jay McShann's Orchestra reconvened to record Going to Kansas City. Although Johnson continued to tour into the 1980s, he developed Alzheimer's disease in 1989, which he struggled with until his death on February 6, 2000.

Fernand Gravey

Fernand Gravey known as Fernand Gravet in the United States, was the son of actors Georges Mertens and Fernande Depernay, who appeared in silent films produced by pioneer Belge Cinéma Film.

Before World War I, he received an education in Britain and could speak both French and English fluently, something which became useful in his movie roles. During the war, Gravey served in the British Merchant Marine Corp.

Gravey performed in four films in 1913 and 1914 (as Fernand Mertens), but his first film of importance was L'Amour Chante, released in 1930. In 1933, he made Bitter Sweet, his first English language movie, which became more famous in its 1940 incarnation with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

In 1937, after several more French and British movies, Gravey went to Hollywood, where the spelling of his last name was altered to Gravet, and he became the focus of a rather extensive Hollywood publicity campaign (instructing moviegoers to pronounce his name properly: "Rhymes with Gravy"). Unfortunately for Gravey, he was offered only standard parts, the type of Gallic-lover roles that Louis Jourdan played in the 1950s and 1960s.

The first two films he made in Hollywood were for Warner Brothers: The King and the Chorus Girl (1937), with Joan Blondell and Jane Wyman, and Fools for Scandal (1938), with Carole Lombard and Ralph Bellamy. Gravey then signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was cast as Johann Strauss in the expensive biopic The Great Waltz, with Luise Rainer and Miliza Korjus.

MGM next planned to star Gravey in a film version of Rafael Sabatini's adventure novel Scaramouche, but instead he returned to France just before the Nazi occupation began. Although he had agreed to appear in German-approved French films, Gravey was an underminer of the invaders as a member of the French Secret Army and the Foreign Legion.

At the end of the war, Gravey was considered a war hero, and continued to be featured in French productions such as La Ronde (with Danielle Darrieux), and Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954). Among his last English language performances were How to Steal a Million (1966), Guns for San Sebastian (1968) and The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), in which he played the police inspector.

Fernand died on 2 November 1970 of a heart-attack.

John Michael Hayes

John Michael Hayes was an American screenwriter, who scripted four of Alfred Hitchcock's films in the 1950s.

Hayes was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to John Michael Hayes Sr. and Ellen Mabel Hayes. Hayes Sr. was a tool and die maker but had performed as a song and dance man on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit earlier in life.

As a child, Hayes missed much of his school career from second grade through fifth grade due to ear infections. During that time away from school, he discovered a love of reading. In junior high school, he became a staff writer on The Spectator, the school newspaper, and at age 16, he wrote for the high school yearbook as well as editing a Boy Scout weekly, The Eagle Trail. His work brought him to the attention of Worcester's Evening Gazette, and Hayes began penning articles about Boy Scout activities for the paper.

Later stints with the Worcester Telegram and a profile in The Christian Science Monitor led to a job with the Associated Press. Working diligently, Hayes managed to amass enough money to attend Massachusetts State College.

At college, Hayes became interested in radio and won a contest to write radio stories for Crosley Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio. Following a period in the US Army during World War II, Hayes moved to California and resumed his radio career. In California, Hayes scripted for various radio comedies and dramas, including The Adventures of Sam Spade, Alias Jane Doe, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, My Favorite Husband, Sweeney and March, Twelve Players and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

His success in radio led to an invitation from Universal-International Pictures to write screenplays. His first screen credit was for Redball Express in 1952. Much of Hayes's career was spent writing screenplays for glossy, big-budget melodramas like Torch Song with Joan Crawford, BUtterfield 8 with Elizabeth Taylor, The Carpetbaggers with Carroll Baker, and Where Love Has Gone with Susan Hayward, Mike Connors and Bette Davis. His adaptation of Grace Metalious's steamy bestseller, Peyton Place, earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Hayes collaborated with director Alfred Hitchcock on four films: Rear Window (for which he won an Edgar Award and an Oscar nomination), To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Their first collaboration, Rear Window, is considered by many critics to be one of Hitchcock's best and most thrilling pictures. The Man Who Knew Too Much, a remake of Hitchcock's 1934 film of the same name, became one of the most financially successful films of its year of release.

After several years of retirement, Hayes resurfaced to co-write director Charles Haid's family adventure drama Iron Will, starring Kevin Spacey, in 1994. He taught film writing at Dartmouth College until he retired in 2000.

In 2001, Hayes's collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock was the subject of the book Writing with Hitchcock by Steven DeRosa, which gave a full account of Hayes's four film collaboration with the director. In 2004, Hayes was the recipient of the Writers Guild of America's highest honor, the Screen Laurel Award. Hayes died of natural causes on November 19, 2008, in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Edmund Gwenn

Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

As a stage actor in the West End and on Broadway, he was associated with a wide range of works by modern playwrights, including Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy and J. B. Priestley. After the Second World War, he lived in the United States, where he had a successful career in Hollywood and Broadway.

Gwenn was born in Wandsworth, London to John and Catherine (née Oliver) Kellaway. His brother was the actor Arthur Chesney, and his cousin was the actor Cecil Kellaway. Gwenn was educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London. He began his acting career in the theatre in 1895, and learned his craft as a member of Willie Edouin's company, playing brash comic roles. In 1901 he married Minnie Terry, niece of Dame Ellen Terry. In the same year, he went to Australia and acted there for three years with the J. C. Williamson company. His wife accompanied him, and when Gwenn was in a production of Ben Hur that was a disastrous failure, she restored the couple's fortunes by accepting an engagement from Williamson. Later, the couple appeared on stage together in London in a farce called What the Butler Saw in 1905 and, in 1911, when Irene Vanbrugh made her debut in variety, she chose Terry and Gwenn to join her in a short play specially written by J. M. Barrie.

When he returned to London, Gwenn appeared not in low comedy but in what The Times called "a notably intellectual and even sophisticated setting" at the Court Theatre under the management of J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker. There, in 1905 to 1907, in the words of The Times, "he was invaluable in smaller parts [giving] every part he played its full worth", including Straker, the proletarian chauffeur to John Tanner in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, and Drinkwater, the cockney gangster in Captain Brassbound's Conversion. He also appeared in plays by Granville-Barker and John Galsworthy, in Elizabeth Robins's suffragette drama Votes for Women and in works by other contemporaries. In Barrie's What Every Woman Knows (1908) in the role of the over-enthusiastic James Wylie he impressed the producer Charles Frohman, who engaged him for his repertory company at the Duke of York's Theatre. In 1912, Gwenn went into management in partnership with Hilda Trevelyan. His career was interrupted by his military service during the First World War, serving as an officer in the British Army. During the war, Gwenn's marriage broke up and was dissolved. His ex-wife remarried but remained on affectionate terms with him.

After peace returned, Gwenn's leading roles in the West End during the 1920s included Old Bill in Bruce Bairnsfather's Old Bill, M.P. (1922); Christian Veit in Lilac Time (1922–23); the title role in A. A. Milne's The Great Broxoff (1923); Leo Swinburne in Good Luck by Seymour Hicks and Ian Hay (1923); and Hippolyte Gallipot in Lehár's Frasquita (1925). Looking back at Gwenn's career, The Times considered, "Out of scores of other parts which he played in England and in America, the best remembered are probably Hornblower in Galsworthy's The Skin Game, the Viennese paterfamilias in Lilac Time and Samuel Pepys in Fagan's And So to Bed in 1926."

Gwenn began his film career in 1916, playing Macbeth in The Real Thing at Last, a satire of the American film industry written by Peter Pan playwright J. M. Barrie. A notable early role was a recreation of his stage character Hornblower in the 1921 Anglo-Dutch silent film of The Skin Game, which he reprised ten years later in Alfred Hitchcock's early sound version of The Skin Game. His debut in a talking picture was in an adaptation of Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband, made at Elstree in 1931. Of Gwenn's many British film roles, The Times considered his best known to be Jess Oakroyd in The Good Companions with John Gielgud and Jessie Matthews (1933) and Radfern in Carol Reed's Laburnum Grove with Cedric Hardwicke (1936). His final British film role, as a capitalist trying to take over a family brewery in Cheer Boys Cheer (1939) is credited with being the first authentic Ealing comedy.

Gwenn appeared in more than eighty films, including Pride and Prejudice (1940), Cheers for Miss Bishop, Of Human Bondage and The Keys of the Kingdom. George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935) was his first appearance in a Hollywood film, as Katharine Hepburn's father. He settled in Hollywood in 1940 and became part of its British colony. He had a small role as a Cockney assassin in a Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent in 1940. For his Santa Claus role in Miracle on 34th Street he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in Mister 880 (1950). Near the end of his career, he played one of the main roles in Them! (1954) and in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry (1955).

On Broadway Gwenn starred in the acclaimed 1942 production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, starring Katharine Cornell (who was also the producer), Judith Anderson, and Ruth Gordon. Time proclaimed it, "a dream production by anybody's reckoning – the most glittering cast the theatre has seen, commercially, in this generation."

Gwenn remained a British subject all his life. When he first moved to Hollywood, he lived at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. His home in London had been reduced to rubble during the bombings by the German Luftwaffe in the Second World War. Only the fireplace survived. What Gwenn regretted most was the loss of the memorabilia he had collected of the actor Henry Irving. Eventually, Gwenn bought a house at 617 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, which he later shared with the former Olympic athlete Rodney Soher. At the age of 78 he travelled from his home in California for a reunion with his ex-wife in London. He told a reporter, "I never married again because I was very happy with my wife. I simply stayed faithful to the memory of that happiness."

Gwenn died from pneumonia after suffering a stroke, in Woodland Hills, California, twenty days before his 82nd birthday. He was cremated, and his ashes were placed in the vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Gwenn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street for his contribution to motion pictures.

Richard Friedenthal

Richard Paul Caspar Friedenthal was a German writer.

Friedenthal was a son of the physician and anthropologist Hans Wilhelm Carl Friedenthal . He grew up in Berlin-Nikolassee . During World War I he served as a soldier and was seriously wounded. After the war he studied literature and art history as well as philosophy at the universities of Berlin , Jena and Munich , among others as a student of Heinrich Wölfflin , Fritz Strich and Max Weber . In 1922 he received his doctorate in philosophy .

Stefan Zweig supported his first literary attempts in the 1920s . From 1928 he worked as a publisher's editor ; from 1930 he was head of the Knaur publishing house in Berlin. Friedenthal published Knaur's Konversationslexikon there , which embodied the new type of one-volume, popular reference work and was a great sales success. From 1933 Friedenthal was subject to a writing ban because of his Jewish origins.

In 1938 Friedenthal emigrated to Great Britain. From June 1940 to March 1941 he was interned at Hutchinson Internment Camp . From 1942 to 1950 he was Secretary of the PEN Center of German-speaking Authors Abroad . From 1943 to 1951 he worked for the BBC . From 1945 to 1950 he was co-editor of the Neue Rundschau in Stockholm . He also published Stefan Zweig's works and managed his estate. In 1951 Friedenthal received British citizenship. From 1951 to 1954 he lived in Germany again and managed the Droemersche publishing house in Munich. From 1954 he lived permanently in Great Britain. 

He died in 1979 while on a visit to Germany.

Rudolf Leonhard

Rudolf Leonhard was a German author and communist activist.

Leonhard came from a family of lawyers and studied law and Philology in Berlin and Göttingen. In 1914 he volunteered for the German military effort in World War I, but quickly converted to pacifism and was brought before a military court for his convictions.

In 1918 he joined the USPD (Independent German Social Democratic Party) and fought alongside Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in the 1918 revolution. In 1919, he joined the KPD (Communist Party of Germany), but left that party in favor of the left-communist KAPD (German Communist Workers’ Party), which he also left after a year. In 1918 he married the author Susanne Köhler, but was divorced from her after one year. However, Susanne had a son Wladimir Leonhard in 1921 (later called Wolfgang), for whom the presumed father was Rudolf.

In the early 1920s he married Frieda Gertrud Riess, a prominent Berlin portrait photographer.

From 1919 onwards he was a freelance author for the publication Die Weltbühne, and from the summer of 1922 he worked for the publishing house Verlag Die Schmiede as a lector and as the editor of a series of books, “Außenseiter der Gesellschaft”. In late November 1925, he began and led the Gruppe 1925 which counted Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Albert Ehrenstein, Leonhard Frank, Walter Hasenclever, Walter Mehring and Kurt Tucholsky among its members. After a difference of opinion, Leonhard left the group in 1927.

In March 1928, he moved to Paris at the invitation of his friend Walter Hasenclever and lived with him until 1934. In April 1933, Leonhard took part in the foundation of the „Ligue des Combattants de la Paix" and was co-president of the German sector alongside Albert Einstein. After the “Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller” was taken over by the „Reichsverband deutscher Schriftsteller", he successfully founded the „Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller im Ausland" and became leader of the French section. He describes his experiences in the Spanish Civil War in his collection of stories “Der Tod des Don Quijote”. From 1939 until 1944, he was detained. First he was held in Le Vernet, then he was transferred to Castres. He fled, was recaptured, and eventually fled again, living in underground Marseille until the end of the war.

He returned to Paris in 1944. In 1947 he took part in the first Congress of German Authors. In 1950 he returned to Germany and took up residence in East Berlin. He was very ill at this point. Because he was seen as an immigrant from the West and due to his son’s activities, he was only granted a small place on the East German literary scene. He died in 1953.

Hans Kleiber

Hans Kleiber was a traditional Western etcher, painter, and illustrator.

Kleiber was born in Cologne, Germany in 1887. He came to Wyoming from Germany in 1906 and in 1907, he entered the U. S. Forestry Service as a Ranger with duties throughout the Northwest. When he resigned in 1924, it was to devote his entire time to art, despite his lack of formal art instruction.

In 1931, he received the Silver Medal Award from the California Print Makers Society. He was a member of the Associated American Artists.

Kleiber died at the Eventide Nursing Home in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1967.

His work is in the collection of the Library of Congress; the Wyoming State Art Museum in Cheyenne, Wyoming; the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming; the Montana Historical Society in Helena, Montana; The Bradford Brinton Memorial and Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming; and the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, Wyoming.

Alec Wilder

Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder was an American composer.

Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker Alexander Lafayette Chew. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life. He attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune.

He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree. While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973.

He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were "I'll Be Around" (a hit for the Mills Brothers), "While We're Young" (recorded by Peggy Lee and many others), "Blackberry Winter", "Where Do You Go?" (recorded by Sinatra) and "It's So Peaceful in the Country." He also wrote many songs for the cabaret artist Mabel Mercer, including one of her signature pieces, "Did You Ever Cross Over to Sneden's?" Wilder also occasionally wrote his own lyrics, including for his most famous song "I'll Be Around." Other lyricists he worked with included Loonis McGlohon, William Engvick, Johnny Mercer and Fran Landesman.

In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed classical pieces for unique combinations of orchestral instruments. The Alec Wilder Octet, including Eastman classmate Mitch Miller on oboe, recorded several of his originals for Brunswick Records in 1938-40. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles ("The Hotel Detective Registers"), were strongly influenced by jazz. He wrote eleven operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little (1953), was commissioned for television by CBS. Wilder also arranged a series of Christmas carols for Tubachristmas.

Sinatra conducted the Columbia String Orchestra on Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, an album of Wilder's classical music (1946). Wilder also contributed two tone poems, "Grey" and "Blue", to the 1956 album, Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color.

Wilder wrote the definitive book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 (1972). He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the middle to late 1970s. With lyricist Loonis McGlohon (his co-host on the radio series) he composed songs for the Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North Carolina.

Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle. He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of "While We're Young", he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" Pianist Marian McPartland told the story of this "alleged" comment to Tony Bennett, on her "Piano Jazz" radio show in 2004.

Wilder died in Gainesville, Florida, from lung cancer in December 1980, and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Avon, New York, outside Rochester.

Count Dieter von Landsberg-Velen

Count Dieter von Landsberg-Velen was the president of the German Equestrian Federation from 1968 until 2001 and actively committed himself to the sport for more than 30 years. He was the show director of the huge international show jumping and national dressage competition Balve Optimum, which now hosts the German Championships. The event is located at the count's castle Wocklum.

Von Landsberg-Velen was born on December 17, 1926 at Wocklum and studied law at university. At the age of 23 he chaired the Balve riding club. At the start of his presidency at the German Equestrian Federation in 1968 he merged the sport and breeding societies into an umbrella federation.

In 1973 Von Landsberg-Velen chaired the German Olympic Riding Committee (DOKR) as well as the German Olympic Committee (NOK). In 1974 he was VP of the German Sports Federation. In 1993 he became VP of the German Olympic Committee.

For 35 years Dieter was on the board of Malteser Germany and under his governance the society became the international worldwide relief agency for humanitarian aid.

Count Dieter von Landsberg-Velen became highly decorated in his life. He was a recipient of the National Cross of Merit with Star given by the German Government and Olympic Order. In 2002 he received the Rider's Cross in gold with diamonds from the German Equestrian Federation.

Von Landsberg-Velen died on April 15, 2012 at the age of 86.

John Pearce Mitchell

John Pearce Mitchell was a chemist who was a pioneer in the chemistries of air and water pollution control.

Mitchell studied, taught and conducted research at Stanford University throughout his life. In his nearly 75-year association with the university, he became known for his generosity and rigor in teaching inorganic chemistry, and his service to the community both on campus and off. Among many substantial leadership roles, he served the Red Cross and local schools, as well as Stanford’s undergraduate admissions, support and programming; Stanford athletics; and Associated Students organizations.

Born the son of a physician in Providence, Rhode Island in 1880, Mitchell first came to Stanford as a freshman in the fall of 1899. Hearing loss due to scarlet fever had made his first aim, a medical career, impractical. Undeterred, he turned to the related field of chemistry, maintaining an interest in medicine and healthcare throughout his career. He completed undergraduate and master’s study, then took a year’s study at the University of Leipzig before returning for doctoral work at Stanford (AB, AM, PhD). He took a position as instructor in 1905 – before Leipzig – assisting Chemistry Professor Robert Eckles Swain. Over his years as instructor, then assistant (1908), associate (1916) and full professor of chemistry (1920), Professor Mitchell taught 35 years of freshmen inorganic chemistry at Stanford. He retired officially in 1945, but remained a member of the university’s Academic Council, a role he held from the time of founding Stanford President David Starr Jordan, until his death in 1973.

Calum Maclean

Calum Iain Maclean was a Scottish folklorist, collector, ethnographer and author.

Maclean was born in Òsgaig, Isle of Raasay, Scotland, into a family of five boys and two girls. His father was Malcolm MacLean (1880–1951), who was a tailor. His mother, Kirsty (1886–1974), was the daughter of Sorley Mor Nicolson of Braes, Skye, and his wife, Ishabel.

Maclean's four brothers were the famous Gaelic poet and scholar, Sorley MacLean [Somhairle MacGill-Eain] (1911–1996), a schoolmaster and classicist, John Maclean (1910–1970), and two general practitioners, Dr. Alasdair Maclean (1918–1999), and Dr. Norman Maclean (c.1917-c.1980). Alasdair was also a historian. Ishabel and Mary, his sisters, were also schoolteachers.

Maclean received his early education at Raasay Primary School and then Portree High School (1929–1935), Skye. Maclean then went to the University of Edinburgh (1935–1939) where he took a first in Celtic Studies under the tutelage of two famous Gaelic scholars, Professor William J. Watson (1865–1948), and his son Professor James Carmichael Watson (1910–1942). He won the McCaig and Macpherson scholarships which enabled him to enrol at University College Dublin where he undertook further study in Early Irish under Professor Osborn Bergin (1872–1950) and in Medieval and Modern Welsh under Professor J. Lloyd-Jones (1885–1965).

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Maclean's studies came to a temporary halt and he had to cast around for some other means of livelihood. At first he worked in a factory in Clonmel, County Tipperary, and from there he went to stay in Inverin, just west of Galway City in Connemara. While living there, Maclean began to take an interest in the local Irish folklore, inspired by the Gaelic revival and the writings of Douglas Hyde (1860–1949). With relative ease Maclean acquired a particular skill in the Connaught Irish spoken in the Gaeltacht and was appointed by Professor Séamus Ó Duilearga (1899–1980) as a part-time collector for the Irish Folklore Commission (Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann).

Like all other members of his family, MacLean had been raised in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which his brother Sorely later described as "the strictest of Calvinist fundamentalism".[1] While living in Connemara during the Emergency, however, Calum Maclean rejected his strict Calvinist upbringing and was received into the Roman Catholic Church. From August 1942 to February 1945, Maclean sent a considerable amount of lore in the local Conamara Theas dialect to the Commission, amounting to six bound volumes. From March 1945 Maclean was employed as a temporary cataloguer by the Commission in Dublin. During the next few months, Maclean learnt the scientific craft of folklore, extracting excerpts from 19th century printed Scottish Gaelic tale collections and gaining experience in cataloguing.

On 19 December 1945, the Irish Folklore Commission sent Calum Maclean to the Hebrides with an ediphone as a recording device. The Commission intended to fund at least one attempt at scientific folklore collecting before the last Scottish Gaelic storytellers and folk-singers who had escaped the coercive Anglicisation of the 1872 Education Act had died. Maclean was fully conscious of the task that lay before him and applied himself to the work with gusto. 

It was clear from Maclean's preliminary collections (mainly from his own relations) in Raasay that there was still a great deal to collect and, in light of this, the Irish Folklore Commission took the decision in summer 1946 to send Maclean back to the Gàidhealtachd to that he could continue his work in the field. This was enabled by an official grant from the Irish State of £2,000. Over the next four and a half years (from June 1946 to the end of December 1950), while still in the employ of the Commission, Maclean worked assiduously in collecting a further nineteen bound volumes of lore (amounting to over 9,000 manuscript pages) as well as his diaries, amounting to a further five full bound volumes (over 2,000 manuscript pages). It was during this period that Maclean collected the longest story ever recorded in Scotland, the 58,000 words of Alasdair mac a' Cheird (Alasdair son of the Caird), told to him in 1949 by Angus MacMillan. This almost doubled the previous "record" of the 30,000 words of Leigheas Coise Cein (The Healing of Kane's Leg), recorded from Lachlin MacNeill, an Islayman, by John Francis Campbell and Hector Maclean in 1870.

On New Year's Day 1951, Maclean formally began to work for the newly founded School of Scottish Studies based at his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh. Since being given this long overdue institutional berth, the systematic collection of Scottish Gaelic and Scots folklore began in earnest through the avid work of Calum Maclean, the School's first appointed collector, Hamish Henderson (1919–2002), John MacInnes (1930-), to name but a few, and their successors. The very first recordings that he made for the School included no less than 524 Gaelic tales from a roadman encountered "in the dead of winter, and Lochaber lay white and deep in snow." The last that Maclean made were literally on his death bed.

Maclean was the first person to undertake the systematic collection of the old Gaelic songs, stories and traditions in the Highlands and Islands with modern recording apparatus. Therein lies the importance of his work. A good deal had been done previously in the way of collecting old stories in the Highlands by John Francis Campbell of Islay (1821–1885) and his collectors, but lacking any means of making mechanical recordings, their task of writing down such tales from dictation was a very laborious one, and J. F. Campbell himself admitted that his collection in no way exhausted the stories current in the Highlands "whole districts are yet untried, and whole classes of stories, such as popular history and robber stories, have yet been untouched."

Most importantly, Maclean spent a little over a year (from Summer 1951 to Autumn 1952) undertaking professional training at Uppsala University in Sweden which was then, as now, at the forefront of folklore methodology, cataloguing and archival techniques. Maclean benefited greatly by what he learnt at this institution as well as his time at the Irish Folklore Commission. Having studied under Professor Dag Strömbäck, he later set up an index system for Scottish folklore at the School of Scottish Studies based on the Uppsala one. Maclean's fieldwork experience, in-depth knowledge of Gaelic oral tradition and broad academic knowledge provided him with a unique combination of skills that were advantageous to collecting. In addition, Maclean had a remarkable facility to put people at ease and so gained their confidence. He stressed this observation in one of his articles that "for any folklore collector the crucial time is when contact is first made with the tradition bearer" and that "every folklore collector must be prepared to efface himself and approach even the most humble tradition bearer with the deference due to the high and exalted." Due to abiding by this principle, Maclean was able to find contacts and tradition bearers and by doing so he managed to gather in a vast amount of oral material straight from people's memories. Out of the hundreds of people recorded by Maclean, there were four storytellers that struck him as exceptionally talented: Seumas MacKinnon, known as Seumas Iain Ghunnairigh, (c. 1866-c.1957), from Northbay in Barra, Duncan MacDonald, Donnchadh Mac Dhòmhnaill 'ic Dhonnchaidh, (1882–1954), from Peninerine in South Uist, Angus (Barrach) MacMillan (1874–1954), from Griminish in Benbecula and John (The Bard) MacDonald (1876–1964) from Highbridge in Brae Lochaber.

Maclean was diagnosed with cancer in 1956, necessitating the amputation of his left arm the following year. He continued to work. His only major publication was "The Highlands" (1959); his uncompromising view of the Highland people, history and culture from the perspective of a Gaelic-speaking insider received many favourable critical reviews on publication. Apart from a few academic papers and popular publications, Maclean's foremost legacy is his vast collection of mainly Gaelic oral tradition carried out in the field over from 1946 to 1960. The vast majority of the collection was made in the Western Isles (in South Uist, Benbecula and Barra) and on the mainland Scottish Highlands. Maclean was always conscious of being a successor to those great collectors who had gone before him: John Francis Campbell (1821-1885), Hector Maclean (1818–1892), John Dewar (1802–1872), Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912), Fr. Allan MacDonald (1859–1905), as well as many others.

On 17 August 1960 Calum Maclean died of cancer at the age of 44 in the Sacred Heart Hospital, Daliburgh, South Uist, Scotland.

Sorley MacLean

Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics." Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.

He was raised in a strict Presbyterian family on the island of Raasay, immersed in Gaelic culture and literature from birth, but abandoned religion for socialism. In the late 1930s, he befriended many Scottish Renaissance figures, such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Douglas Young. He was wounded three times while serving in the Royal Corps of Signals during the North African Campaign. MacLean published little after the war, due to his perfectionism. In 1956, he became head teacher at Plockton High School, where he advocated for the use of the Gaelic language in formal education.

In his poetry, MacLean juxtaposed traditional Gaelic elements with mainstream European elements, frequently comparing the Highland Clearances with contemporary events, especially the Spanish Civil War. His work was a unique fusion of traditional and modern elements that has been credited with restoring Gaelic tradition to its proper place and reinvigorating and modernizing the Gaelic language. Although his most influential works, Dàin do Eimhir and An Cuilthionn, were published in 1943, MacLean did not become well known until the 1970s, when his works were published in English translation. His later poem Hallaig, published 1954, achieved "cult status"  outside Gaelic-speaking circles for its supernatural representation of a village depopulated in the Highland Clearances and came to represent all Scottish Gaelic poetry in the English-speaking imagination.

Joseph Auslander

Joseph Auslander was an American poet, anthologist, translator of poems, and novelist. Auslander was appointed the first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1937 and 1941.

Joseph Auslander was born to Louis and Martha (Asyueck) Auslander on October 11, 1897 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard University in 1917, and in 1919 became an instructor in English at Harvard while engaged in graduate studies. From 1921 to 1922 he attended the Sorbonne in Paris on a Parker fellowship.

In 1930, Auslander married Svanhild Kreutz, who died in childbirth two years later, leaving a daughter, Svanhild Frances Martha. In 1932 Auslander was married to Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Audrey Wurdemann.; The couple had two children, Louis and Mary. From 1937 to 1941, Auslander was the Poet Laureate Consultant in English Poetry for the Library of Congress. During this time, he and Wurdemann lived at 3117 35th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Cathedral Heights neighborhood.

Auslander's best-known work is "The Unconquerables" (1943), a collection of poems addressed to the German-occupied countries of Europe. He served as the poetry editor for the North American Review and The Measure. Auslander was honoured with the Robert Frost Prize for Poetry.

Joseph Auslander died of a heart attack on June 22, 1965, in Coral Gables, Florida

Maxwell Bodenheim

Maxwell Bodenheim was an American poet and novelist. A literary figure in Chicago, he later went to New York where he became known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him international notoriety during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.

Born Maxwell Bodenheimer in Hermanville, Mississippi, he was the son of Solomon Bodenheimer (born July 1858) and Carrie (born April 1860). His father was born in Germany and his mother in Alsace-Lorraine. Carrie emigrated to the United States in 1881 and Solomon in 1888. In 1900, the family moved from Mississippi to Chicago.

Bodenheim and writer Ben Hecht met in Chicago and became literary friends about 1912. (At the time, Bodenheim was nicknamed "Bogey." The nickname was also applied in his later years in Greenwich Village.) They co-founded The Chicago Literary Times (1923–1924). Contributors included Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, Edgar Lee Masters, Witter Bynner, Arthur Davison Ficke, Floyd Dell, Vachel Lindsay and Sherwood Anderson.

For many years a leading figure of the Bohemian scene in New York's Greenwich Village, Bodenheim deteriorated rapidly after his success in the 1920s and 1930s. Before he married his second wife, Grace, he had become a panhandler. They spent part of their marriage in the Catskills. 

Critic John Strausbaugh suggests that Bodenheim had "a real talent for scandal, easy enough to generate during Greenwich Village's prolonged drunken orgy in the Prohibition years." Strausbaugh notes that Bodenheim's "haughty, insulting demeanor, and his habit of trying to steal other men's women right under their noses, got him regularly socked on the jaw and thrown out of bars, soirees and the fauxhemian revels at Webster Hall."

Bodenheim published his earliest verse in the groundbreaking Poetry magazine in 1914. A poem by Bodenheim was featured in the 1917 Others: An Anthology of the New Verse, which included poems by such future luminaries as T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens. While the poet was living in New York City, he became an active member of the Raven Poetry Circle of Greenwich Village.

Over the next ten years, he established himself as a leading American author, publishing ten books of verse, which incorporate many techniques of the imagists, and 13 novels. His poetry books include Minna and Myself (1918), Advice (1920), Against This Age (1923), The King of Spain (1928), Bringing Jazz! (1930) and Selected Poems 1914–1944 (1946).

Bodenheim's novels include Blackguard (1923), Replenishing Jessica (1925), Ninth Avenue (1926), Georgia May (1927), Naked on Roller Skates (1930) and A Virtuous Girl (1930).

Bodenheim had three wives. His first wife was Minna Schein (married 1918-divorced 1938), with whom he had one son, Solbert, born 1920. His second wife was Grace Finan (married 1939-her death 1950). After becoming a widower, he married Ruth Fagin (married 1952-their deaths 1954).

Ruth, 28 years his junior, shared his derelict lifestyle. They were homeless and slept on park benches. He sometimes panhandled while carrying a sign that read, "I Am Blind," although he had adequate vision. He sometimes composed short poems for money or drinks. 

Bodenheim and Ruth were murdered February 6, 1954, at a flophouse at 97 Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Richard Wilbur

Richard Purdy Wilbur was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets of his generation, Wilbur's work, composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentlemanly elegance. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987 and received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice, in 1957 and 1989.

Wilbur was born in New York City on March 1, 1921, and grew up in North Caldwell, New Jersey. In 1938 he graduated from Montclair High School, where he worked on the school newspaper. He graduated from Amherst College in 1942 and served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. He attended graduate school at Harvard University. Wilbur taught at Wellesley College, then Wesleyan University for two decades and at Smith College for another decade. At Wesleyan he was instrumental in founding the award-winning poetry series of the University Press. He received two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and taught at Amherst College as late as 2009. He was also on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.

When only 8 years old, Wilbur published his first poem in John Martin's Magazine. His first book, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems, appeared in 1947. Thereafter he published several volumes of poetry, including New and Collected Poems (Faber, 1989). Wilbur was also a translator, specializing in the 17th century French comedies of Molière and dramas of Jean Racine. His translation of Tartuffe has become the play's standard English version and has been presented on television twice (a 1978 production is available on DVD). Wilbur also published several children's books, including Opposites, More Opposites, and The Disappearing Alphabet. In 1959 he became the general editor of The Laurel Poetry Series (Dell Publishing).

Continuing the tradition of Robert Frost and W. H. Auden, Wilbur's poetry finds illumination in everyday experiences. Less well-known is Wilbur's foray into lyric writing. He provided lyrics to several songs in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical Candide, including the famous "Glitter and Be Gay" and "Make Our Garden Grow." He also produced several unpublished works, including "The Wing" and "To Beatrice".

His honors included the 1983 Drama Desk Special Award and the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of The Misanthrope, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award for Things of This World (1956), the Edna St Vincent Millay award, the Bollingen Prize, and the Chevalier, Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959. In 1987 Wilbur became the second poet, after Robert Penn Warren, to be named U.S. Poet Laureate after the position's title was changed from Poetry Consultant. In 1988 he won the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry and in 1989 he won a second Pulitzer, for his New and Collected Poems. On October 14, 1994, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. He also received the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation in 1994. In 2003 Wilbur was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2006 he won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. In 2010 he won the National Translation Award for the translation of The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille. In 2012 Yale University conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters on Wilbur.

Wilbur died on October 14, 2017, at a nursing home in Belmont, Massachusetts from natural causes aged 96.

John Holmes

John Holmes was a poet and critic.

He was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, and both attended and taught at Tufts University where he was a professor of literature and modern poetry for 28 years. He wrote several volumes of poetry and the lyrics to several Unitarian Universalist hymns, including "The People's Peace." He taught John Ciardi and Anne Sexton.