Sir Charles Aubrey Smith, CBE, known to movie-goers as C. Aubrey Smith, was an English cricketer and actor. He was knighted in 1944 for services to the theatre.

Smith was born in London, England and educated at Charterhouse School and St John’s College, Cambridge. He settled in South Africa to prospect for gold in 1888-89. While there he developed pneumonia and was wrongly pronounced dead by doctors. He married Isabella Wood in 1896.

As a cricketer, Smith was primarily a seam bowler, though he was also a useful lower-order batsman and slip fielder. His oddly curved bowling run-up gave him the nickname “Round the Corner Smith”. W. G. Grace commented that “it is rather startling when he suddenly appears at the bowling crease”. He played for Cambridge University 1882-85 and for Sussex at various times between 1882 and 1892. While in South Africa he captained the Johannesburg English XI. He captained England to victory in his only Test match, against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 1888-89, taking five wickets for 19 runs in the first innings. In 1932 he founded the Hollywood Cricket Club and created a pitch with imported English grass. He attracted fellow expats such as David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard and Boris Karloff to the club as well as local American players.

Smith’s stereotypical Englishness spawned several amusing anecdotes: while fielding at slip for the Hollywood Club, he dropped a difficult catch and ordered his English butler to fetch his spectacles; they were brought on to the field on a silver platter. The next ball looped gently to slip, to present the kind of catch that “a child would take at midnight with no moon”. Smith dropped it and, snatching off his lenses, commented, “Damned fool brought my reading glasses”. Decades after his cricket career had ended, when he had long been a famous face in films, Smith was spotted in the pavilion on a visit to Lord’s. “That man over there seems familiar”, remarked one member to another. “Yes”, said the second, seemingly oblivious to his Hollywood fame, “Chap called Smith. Used to play for Sussex.”

Audie Leon Murphy was the most decorated American soldier of World War II and a celebrated movie star for over two decades in the post-war era, appearing in 44 films. He also found some success as a country music composer.

Murphy became the most decorated United States soldier of the war during twenty-seven months in action in the European Theatre. He received the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest award for valor, along with 32 additional U.S. and foreign medals and citations, including five from France and one from Belgium.

Murphy’s successful movie career included To Hell and Back, based on his book of the same title. He also starred in 39 Hollywood films. He died in a plane crash in 1971 and was interred, with full military honors, in Arlington National Cemetery.

Murphy was born in Kingston, Hunt County, Texas, to Emmett Berry Murphy and Josie Bell Killian who was of Irish descent, poor sharecroppers, and grew up on farms between Farmersville and Greenville, as well as near Celeste, Texas. Murphy was the sixth of twelve children, two of whom died prior to reaching adulthood. The Murphy children included, in order: Corinne, Charles Emmett “Buck”, Vernon, June, Oneta, Audie Leon, J.W., Richard, Eugene, Nadine, Billie, and Joseph Murphy. He attended elementary school in Celeste until the fifth grade, at which he dropped out to help support his family after his father abandoned them in 1936. He worked for one dollar per day, plowing and picking cotton on any farm that would hire him. He became very skilled with a rifle, hunting small game to help feed the family. One of his favorite hunting companions was neighbor Dial Henley. When he commented that Murphy never missed when he shot at squirrels, rabbits, and birds, Murphy replied, “Well, Dial, if I don’t hit what I shoot at, my family won’t eat today.” During the late 1930s, Murphy worked at a combination general store/garage and gas station in Greenville, Texas. At fifteen he was working in a radio repair shop, and his mother died on May 23, 1941. Later that year, in agreement with his older sister, Corrinne, Murphy placed his three youngest siblings in an orphanage to ensure their care .

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country. Some people criticized him for over-popularizing music, particularly when adapting popular songs or edited portions of the classical repertoire, but Fiedler kept performances informal and sometimes self-mocking to attract more customers.

Fiedler was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was an Austrian-born violinist who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his mother was a pianist and musician. He grew up in Boston, and attended Boston Latin School until his father retired and they returned to Austria. During 1909, his father took him to Berlin to study violin with Willy Hess. Fiedler returned to Boston at the beginning of World War I. During 1915 he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Karl Muck as a violinist. He also worked as a pianist, organist, and percussionist.

During 1924, Fiedler formed the Boston Sinfonietta, a chamber music orchestra composed of Boston Symphony members, and started a series of free outdoor concerts.

Fiedler was appointed the eighteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra during 1930. While the position of conductor of the Boston Pops both prior to and after Fiedler tended to be a phase of a conductor’s career, Fiedler made it his life’s work, having the position for a half-century.