Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996 to play 32
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson was an African-American gospel singer. With her powerful contralto voice, Mahalia Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world and is the first Queen of Gospel Music. She recorded about 30 albums during her career, and her 45 rpm records included a dozen “golds”?million-sellers.
Born as Mahala Jackson and nicknamed “Halie”, Jackson grew up in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-room dwelling on Pitt Street housed thirteen people and a dog. This included Little Mahala, her brother Roosevelt Hunter, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity Clark, who worked as both a maid and a laundress. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. Aunt Mahala was given the nickname “Duke” after proving herself the undisputed ?boss? of the family. The extended family consisted of her mother’s siblings – Isabell, Mahala, Boston, Porterfield, Hannah, Alice, Rhoda, Bessie, their children, grandchildren and patriarch Rev. Paul Clark, a former slave. Mahalia’s father, John A. Jackson, Sr. was a stevedore and a barber who later became a Baptist minister. He fathered four other children besides Mahalia – Wilmon and then Yvonne, Pearl and Johnny, Jr. Her father’s sister, Jeanette Jackson-Burnett, and husband, Josie, were vaudeville entertainers.
When she was born Halie suffered from genu varum, or “bowed legs.” The doctors wanted to perform surgery by breaking Halie’s legs, but one of the resident aunts opposed it. So Halie’s mother would rub her legs down with greasy dishwater. The condition never stopped young Halie from performing her dance steps for the white woman her mother and Aunt Bell cleaned house for.
Mahalia was five when her mother, Charity, died, leaving her family to decide who would raise Halie and her brother. Aunt Duke assumed this responsibility, and the children were forced to work from sunup to sundown. Aunt Duke would always inspect the house using the “white glove” method. If the house was not cleaned properly, Halie was beaten. If one of the other relatives was unable to do their chores, or clean at their job, Halie or one of her cousins was expected to perform that particular task. School was hardly an option. Halie loved to sing and church is where she loved to sing the most. Halie?s Aunt Bell told her that one day she would sing in front of royalty, a prediction that would eventually come true. Mahalia Jackson began her singing career at the local Mount Mariah Baptist Church. She was baptized in Mississippi by Mt. Moriah’s pastor, the Rev. E. D. Lawrence, then went back to the church to “receive the right hand of fellowship.”
Mako
A Japanese-American actor, many of his acting roles credited him simply as Mako, omitting his surname. Mako is known for Aku from Samurai Jack, Master Splinter from the movie TMNT, Iroh from, and Akiro from Conan the Barbarian. Mako was born in Kobe, Japan, the son of noted children's book author and illustrator Taro Yashima. His parents moved to the United States when he was a small child. He joined them there after World War II, in 1949, joining the military in the 1950s. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1956. When Mako first joined his parents in the USA, he studied architecture. During his military service, he discovered his theatrical talent, and trained at the Pasadena Community Playhouse.
Mako was married to actress Shizuko Hoshi with whom he had two daughters and three grandchildren.
Mako's first cinema role was in the 1959 film Never So Few. In 1965, frustrated by the limited roles available to himself and other Asian American actors, Mako and six others formed the East West Players theatre company, first performing out of a church basement. The company is one of the earliest Asian American theatre organizations, and not only provided a venue for Asian American actors to train and perform, but nurtured many Asian American playwrights. Mako remained artistic director of the company until 1989.
Mala Powers
Mary Ellen “Mala” Powers was an American film actress.
She was born in San Francisco, California. In 1940 her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 Dead End Kids film Tough as They Come.
At the age of 16 she began working in radio drama, before becoming a film actress in 1950. Her first roles were in Outrage and Edge of Doom in 1950. That same year, Stanley Kramer signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer in what may be her most remembered role as Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her part in this movie.
While on a USO entertainment tour in Korea in 1951, she acquired a blood disease and almost died. She was treated with chloromycetin, but a severe allergic reaction resulted in the loss of much of her bone marrow. Powers barely survived, and her recovery took nearly nine months.
Mamie Van Doren
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress and sex symbol.
Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota, the daughter of Warner Carl Olander and Lucille Harriet Bennett. She is of three-quarters Swedish ancestry; the remainder is mixed English and German. Her mother named her after Joan Crawford. In 1939, the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa. In May 1942, they moved to Los Angeles.
In early 1946, Joan began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito’s band and entered beauty contests. Van Doren was married for a brief time at seventeen. She and first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage dissolved quickly, upon her discovery of his abusive nature. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles “Miss Eight Ball” and “Miss Palm Springs”.
Joan was discovered by famed producer Howard Hughes on the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for several years. Hughes launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.
Mantovani
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani, known by the mononym Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-style entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. He is more associated with the light orchestra genre than any other entertainer.
Mantovani was born in Venice, Italy and his father was the concertmaster of La Scala orchestra under Arturo Toscanini. His family moved to England in 1912, where he studied at Trinity College of Music in London. After graduation, he formed his own orchestra, which played in and around Birmingham. By the time World War II broke out, his orchestra was one of the most popular in England, both on the BBC and in live performances.
He was also musical director for a large number of musicals and other plays, including ones by Noel Coward. After the war, he concentrated on recording, and eventually gave up live performance altogether. He worked with arranger and composer Ronnie Binge, who developed the “cascading strings” sound. His records were regulars in stores selling hi-fi stereo equipment, as they were produced and arranged for stereo reproduction. In 1952 Binge ceased to arrange for Mantovani, but his distinctive sound remained.
He recorded for Decca until the mid-1950s, and then London Records. He recorded over 50 albums on that label, many of which were top-40 hits. These included Song from Moulin Rouge and Cara Mia, which reached No. 1 in Britain in 1953 and 1954, respectively. The latter was also Mantovani’s first U.S. Top Ten hit.
Mace Neufeld
Mace Alvin Neufeld is an American film and television producer.
Neufeld was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret Ruth and Philip M. Neufeld, a stockbroker. He married on 28 February 1954. He has three children, the eldest son Bradley David, Glenn Jeremy and daughter Nancy Ann.
Neufeld began as an amateur photographer in his teens; his first snapshot, a returning World War II veteran, “Sammy’s Home”, was widely syndicated and won an award from The New York World Telegram-Sun. He first ventured into the television business when he got a job with the DuMont Television Network. Within a few years Neufeld then formed his own independent television production company and personal management firm which over the years had promoted such popular comedians as Don Adams, Gabe Kaplan and Don Knotts. Not only comedians worked under Neufeld, but musical talents as well, including The Captain and Tennille, The Carpenters, Randy Newman, and Jim Croce.
Neufeld also showed his own talent in showcasing performers, writing musical material for the likes of music stars such as Rosemary Clooney, Sammy Davis Jr., Dorothy Loudon and The Ritz Brothers. He also wrote the theme song for the popular animated antics of the two crows showcased in The Heckle and Jeckle Show.
Madeleine Carroll
Edith Madeleine Carroll was a British actress, popular in the 1930s and 1940s.
She was born as at 32 Herbert Street in West Bromwich, England. She graduated from the University of Birmingham, England with a B.A. degree. She once taught in a girl’s public school.
She made her stage debut with a touring company in The Lash. Widely recognized as one of the most beautiful women in films, Carroll’s aristocratic blonde allure and sophisticated style were first glimpsed by British movie audiences in The Guns of Loos in 1928. Rapidly rising to stardom in England, she graced such popular films of the early ’30s as Young Woodley, Atlantic, The School for Scandal and I Was A Spy. She played the title role in the play Little Catherine. Abruptly, she announced plans to retire from films to devote herself to a private life with her husband, the first of four.
She attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock and, in 1935, starred as one of the director’s earliest prototypical cool, glib, intelligent blondes in The 39 Steps based on the espionage novel by John Buchan. The film became a sensation and with it, so did Carroll. Cited by the New York Times for a performance that was “charming and skillful”, Carroll became very much in demand thanks, in part, to director Hitchcock, who later admitted that he worked very hard with her to bring out the vivacious and sexy qualities she possessed offscreen, but which sometimes vanished when cameras rolled. Of Hitchcock’s heroines, as exemplified by Carroll, film critic Roger Ebert once wrote that they “reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerized the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps.”
Madge Bellamy
Madge Bellamy was an American film actress who was a popular leading lady in the 1920s and early 1930s. Her career declined in the sound era, and ended following a romantic scandal in the 1940s.
Madge Bellamy was born in Hillsboro, Texas in 1899 as Margaret Derden Philpott to William Bledsoe Philpott, a professor of English and Annie Margaret Derden. The family was of English and Irish heritage. Her father was an 1884 graduate of Texas A&M University. Besides teaching English, he taught history and languages, and he also edited many scholarly works. Her parents were married on June 22, 1898 in Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas. Bellamy was raised in San Antonio, Texas until she was 6 years old, and the family later moved to Brownwood, Texas, where her father taught at the local college. When she was 10 years old, the Philpotts moved to Denver, Colorado. Bellamy caught the acting bug as a young girl, and she soon appeared in several plays as a youth.
She ran away to New York City at age 17, and she was soon working as an actor and dancer on Broadway. In 1918, she played the lead role in “Pollyanna” on Broadway and in the touring show. She also appeared in “Dear Brutus”, “Dream Girl”, and in “Peg O’ My Heart on Broadway”. In November 1920, she signed an exclusive contract with Thomas H. Ince’s newly formed Triangle film company to appear in the film called “Passing Thru” which was released in the fall of 1921.
Bellamy made her film debut in 1920. After 4 years with Famous Players her contract was picked up by Fox Film Corporation. Her best known films include Love Never Dies, Lorna Doone, and The Iron Horse .
Madge Evans
Madge Evans was an American stage and film actress. She began her career as a child performer and model.
Born as Margherita Evans, Madge Evans was featured in print ads as the ‘Fairy Soap girl’ as an infant. She made her professional debut at the age of six months, posing for artist’s models. As a youth, her playmates included Robert Warwick, Holbrook Blinn, and Henry Hull. When she was four years old, Evans was featured in a series of child plays produced by William A. Brady. She worked at the old Long Island, New York movie studio. Her success was immediate, so much so that her mother loaned her daughter’s name to a hat company. Evans posed in a mother and child tableau with Anita Stewart, then 16, for an Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company calendar, and as the little mountain girl in Heidi of the Alps.
At the age of 8 in 1917, Evans appeared in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson with John Barrymore, Constance Collier and Laura Hope Crews. At 17, she returned to the stage and appeared as the ingenue in Daisy Mayme. Some of her best work in plays came in productions of Dread, The Marquis, and The Conquering Male. Her last appearance was in Philip Goes Forth produced by George Kelley. Evans’ mother took her to England and Europe when she was 15.
As a child film actress Evans had quite a prolific career appearing in dozens of films. In 1914 aged 5 she appeared with Marguerite Clark in Seven Sisters, a film with a large female ensemble that had been played on stage with Clark’s rival Mary Pickford and Laurette Taylor in the cast. In 1915 she was with Robert Warwick in Alias Jimmy Valentine, a still extant film that has seen release on home video/dvd. At 14 she was the star of J. Stuart Blackton’s rural melodrama On the Banks of the Wabash. She co-starred with Richard Barthelmess in Classmates.