Leopold Stokowski was a British-born American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.

In America, Stokowski performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony of the Air. He was also the founder of the All-American Youth Orchestra, the New York City Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra and The American Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the music for and appeared in Disney’s Fantasia along with being portrayed by Bugs Bunny in the 1949 Looney Tunes episode Long-Haired Hare. Stokowski, who made his official conducting debut in 1909, appeared in public for the last time in 1975 but continued making recordings until June 1977, a few months before his death at the age of 95.

Stokowski was the son of an English-born cabinetmaker with Polish heritage, Kopernik Józef Boles?awowicz Stokowski, and his Irish-born wife Annie Marion Stokowska, née Moore. Stokowski was born Leopold Anthony Stokowski, though on occasion in later life he altered his middle name to Antoni and added the family names Stanis?aw Boles?awowicz. There is some mystery surrounding his early life. For example, he spoke with a slight accent, though he was born and raised in London, England. In addition, on occasion, Stokowski gave his birth year as 1887 instead of 1882, as in a letter to the Hugo Riemann Musiklexicon in 1950, which also gave his birthplace as Kraków, Poland. Nicolas Slonimsky, editor of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians received a letter from a Finnish encyclopedia editor that said, “The Maestro himself told me that he was born in Pomerania, Germany, in 1889.”

However, Stokowski’s birth certificate gives his birth on April 18, 1882, at 13 Upper Marylebone Street, in the Marylebone District of London. Stokowski was named after his Polish-born grandfather Leopold, who died in the English county of Surrey on January 13, 1879, at the age of 49. The “mystery” surrounding his origins and accent is clarified in Oliver Daniel’s 1000-page biography “Stokowski ? A Counterpoint of View”, in which Daniel reveals that Stokowski came under the influence of his first wife, the pianist Olga Samaroff. Samaroff, née Hickenlooper, was from the American midwest,and adopted a more exotic-sounding name to further her career. For professional and career reasons, she “urged him to emphasize only the Polish part of his background” once he became a resident of the United States.

Les Baxter was an American musician and composer.

Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé’s Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as “What Is This Thing Called Love?”.

Baxter then turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, and was credited with the early Nat King Cole hits, “Mona Lisa” and “Too Young”, but both were actually orchestrated by Nelson Riddle. Not a uncommon practice these days: Baxter himself had arranged Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” in 1947 for a recording conducted by Frank De Vol. In 1953 he scored his first film, the sailing travelogue Tanga Tika. With his own orchestra, he released a number of hits including “Ruby”, “Unchained Melody” and “The Poor People Of Paris”. The latter recording sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. He also achieved success with concept albums of his own orchestral suites: Le Sacre Du Sauvage, Festival Of The Gnomes, Ports Of Pleasure, and Brazil Now, the first three for Capitol and the fourth on Gene Norman’s Crescendo label. The list of musicians on these recordings includes Plas Johnson and Clare Fischer.

Baxter also wrote the “Whistle” theme from the TV show Lassie.

Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. The band now performs under the direction of his son Les Brown, Jr.

Les Brown was a big band leader and composer, best known for his nearly seven decades of work with the group Les Brown and His Band of Renown. After graduating from New York Military Academy in 1932, Les Brown attended college at Duke University from 1932-1936. There he led the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils, who performed regularly on Duke’s campus and up and down the east coast. Brown took the band on an extensive summer tour in 1936. At the end of the tour, while some of the band members returned to Duke to continue their education, others stayed on with Brown and continued to tour, becoming in 1938 the Band of Renown. A few years later, in 1945, this band brought Doris Day into prominence with their recording of “Sentimental Journey”. The song’s release coincided with the end of WWII in Europe and became the unofficial homecoming theme for many veterans. The band had nine other number-one hit songs, including “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”.

Les Brown and the Band of Renown performed with Bob Hope on radio, stage and TV for almost fifty years. They did 18 USO Tours for American troops around the world, and entertained over three million people. Before the Super Bowls were televised, the Bob Hope Christmas Specials were the highest-rated programs in television history. Tony Bennett was “discovered” by Bob Hope and did his first public performance with Les and the Band.

The first feature length film that Les and the band appeared in was the war-time movie “Seven Days Leave” starring Victor Mature and Lucille Ball. “Rock-A-Billy Baby”, a low budget 1957 film, was the Band of Renown’s second movie and in 1963, they appeared in Jerry Lewis’ comedy The Nutty Professor.

Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. of Hungarian origin. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square, Of Human Bondage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest, Pygmalion, Intermezzo, Pimpernel Smith and The First of the Few. Howard's Second World War activities included acting and filmmaking. He was active in anti-Nazi propaganda and reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his untimely death in 1943 when his airliner was shot down, sparking modern conspiracy theories regarding his death.

Howard was born Leslie Howard Steiner to a Hungarian-British mother, Lillian and a Hungarian father, Ferdinand Steiner, in Forest Hill, London, UK, and educated at Alleyn's School, London. There was some Jewish background on both sides of his family. Like many others around the time of the First World War, the family changed their name, using "Stainer" as less German-sounding. He worked as a bank clerk before at the outbreak of the First World War. He served in the British Army as a subaltern in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, but suffered shell shock, which led to his relinquishing his commission in May 1916.

Howard began acting on the London stage in 1917 but had his greatest theatrical success in the United States on Broadway, gaining prominence in plays such as Aren't We All?, Outward Bound, and The Green Hat before becoming an undisputed Broadway star in Her Cardboard Lover. His success as time traveller Peter Standish in Berkeley Square resulted in a call to Hollywood the following year, where he also later repeated the Standish role in a 1933 film version of the play.