Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and philanthropist. Referred to as the King of Pop, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in the mid-1960s, and began his solo career in 1971.
Michael Landon
Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director, and producer, who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza, Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven. Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide twenty-two times, second only to Lucille Ball. His twenty-eight years of full-hour television acting surpasses that of TV legends Lucille Ball and James Arness.
Landon produced, wrote, and directed many of his series’ episodes, including his shortest-lived production, Father Murphy, which starred his friend and “Little House” co-star Merlin Olsen. In 1981, Landon won recognition for his screenwriting with a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Although his youngest daughter Jennifer Landon and Bonanza co-star David Canary, have both won multiple Emmys, Michael Landon was never given the honor.
In 1976 Landon wrote and directed an auto-biographical movie, The Loneliest Runner, and was nominated for two Emmys. He also hosted the annual long-running coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade with Kelly Lange, also on NBC.
Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in Forest Hills, a neighborhood of Queens, New York. Landon’s father, Eli Maurice Orowitz, was a Jewish American actor and movie theater manager, and his mother, Peggy O’Neill, was an Irish American Catholic dancer and comedienne. Eugene was the Orowitz’ second child; his sister, Evelyn, was born three years earlier. In 1941, when Orowitz was four years old, he and his family moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Collingswood, New Jersey, where he attended and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Temple Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue, in Haddon Heights, an area that did not allow Jews until after World War II. His family recalls that Landon “went through a lot of hassle studying for the big event, which included bicycling to a nearby town every day to learn how to read Hebrew and do the chanting.” He later attended Collingswood High School.
Michael O’Shea
Michael O'Shea was an American character actor whose career spanned from the 1940s-1960s. Unlike his five brothers who became policemen, O'Shea dropped out of school at 12 and began his acting career in vaudeville by touring with boxing idol Jack Johnson's show.
Much like his character from Lady of Burlesque, Biff Brannigan, O'Shea was a comedian and emcee at speakeasies. He put together his own dance band, "Michael O'Shea and His Stationary Gypsies", and later broke into radio and the "legitimate" stage, where he was billed for a time as "Eddie O'Shea". His performance in the 1942 play The Eve of St. Mark led to a string of film roles in the 40s, which included a memorable performance as Barbara Stanwyck's boyfriend comic in Lady of Burlesque. He also received great reviews in 1944 when he reprised his stage role of Private Thomas Mulveray in the film version of The Eve of St. Mark.
After his career in film waned?he was largely out of films by 1952?he took many roles in television. He acted in TV programs such as Ethel Barrymore Theater, Damon Runyon Theater, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, The Revlon Mirror Theater, and Daktari. He also starred in the television series It's a Great Life from 1954-1956 as Denny Davis, a former GI trying to find a civilian job.
In the 1960s, O'Shea became a plainclothes operative for the CIA after retiring from show business.
Michael York
Michael York, OBE is an English actor. He is more recently known among mainstream audiences for his role as Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series of comedy films.
York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May, a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores. York has an older sister, Penelope Anne and younger twin sisters, Caroline and Bridget but Bridget died a few hours after birth, according to his autobiography. He was brought up in Burgess Hill, Sussex. During his teenage years, York was educated at Bromley Grammar School for Boys, Bromley, London and at Oxford University. He began his career in a 1956 production of The Yellow Jacket. In 1959 he made his West End debut with a brief part in a production of Hamlet.
Prior to graduating with a degree in English from the University of Oxford in 1964, York had toured with the National Youth Theatre, also performing with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the University College Players. After some time with the Dundee Repertory Theatre, York joined the National Theatre where he worked with Franco Zeffirelli during the 1965 staging of Much Ado About Nothing.
York made his film debut as Lucentio in Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew, then was cast as Tybalt in Zeffirelli’s 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. He also starred in an early Merchant Ivory Productions film, The Guru. He played an amoral bisexual drifter in Harold Prince’s film Something for Everyone opposite Angela Lansbury as the countess who hires York as her footman. He then went on to portray the bisexual Brian Roberts in Bob Fosse’s film version of Cabaret, opposite Liza Minnelli. In 1977 reunited with Zeffirelli as a fiery John the Baptist in Jesus of Nazareth.
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing. She also co-starred with Dean Jones in the 1968 Disney film, The Love Bug.
Lee was born Michelle Lee Dusick in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Sylvia Helen and Jack Dusick, a make-up artist. She is of Russian and Polish descent. Lee began her career on television in an episode of the late 1950s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She attended Alexander Hamilton High School where she became popular with her class, she in turn also attended the same high school as did Joel Siegel, Al Michaels and Michelle Phillips did. When she was 18, after graduation from high school, she auditioned for the Broadway play Vintage ’60. She soon began appearing in musicals, becoming a star on Broadway at the age of 19 in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in the role of “Rosemary”, opposite Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, a role she reprised in the film version. She also appeared in more plays, such as the Los Angeles production of Jerry Herman’s Parade and the Broadway productions of Bravo Giovanni and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife.
After she sang and starred in the film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she became known for her roles in the films The Comic and The Love Bug, the latter becoming the biggest blockbuster movie of 1969. That same year, she starred in a special television production of the Jerome Kern?Otto Harbach musical, Roberta, in which she sang “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”. After the birth of her son, she worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in Seesaw, which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. After her mother’s death, she stopped working, wanting to spend time with her only son.
In 1974, Lee starred in the pilot episode for proposed CBS sitcom The Michele Lee Show. She would play Michele Burton, a clerk in a hotel newsstand, with support from Stephen Collins. Only the pilot episode was aired and the series did not eventuate.
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress. She made her screen début in 1980, but first garnered mainstream attention with her appearance in Scarface. She rose to prominence during the late 1980s and early 1990s, during which time she gave a series of critically-acclaimed performances in the films Dangerous Liaisons, Married to the Mob, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Russia House, Frankie and Johnny, Love Field, and The Age of Innocence, as well as appearing as Catwoman, the feline anti-heroine of Batman Returns. Pfeiffer has been nominated for an Academy Award three times: Best Supporting Actress for Dangerous Liaisons, Best Actress for The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Best Actress for Love Field. She won a Golden Globe Award for The Fabulous Baker Boys, a BAFTA Award for Dangerous Liaisons, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Love Field. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Pfeiffer appeared on the cover of People’s first “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” issue in 1990, and again in 1999, having made the list a record six times during the decade.
Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the second of four children of Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, and Donna, a homemaker. She has one elder brother, Rick, and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer and Lori Pfeiffer, both actresses. Her father was of German, Dutch, and Irish descent, and her mother was of Swiss and Swedish ancestry. The family moved to Midway City, California, where Pfeiffer spent her childhood. She attended Fountain Valley High School and graduated within three years and worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket. She then attended Golden West College where she was a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After a short stint training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career, and entered the Miss Orange County Beauty Pageant in 1978, and the Miss Los Angeles contest later that year, after which she was signed by a Hollywood agent who appeared on the judging panel. Moving to Los Angeles, she began to audition for commercials and bit parts in films.
Mickey Gilley
Mickey Leroy Gilley is an American country music singer and musician. Although he started out singing straight-up country and western material in the 1970s, he moved towards a more pop-friendly sound in the 1980s, bringing him further success on not just the country charts, but the pop charts as well. Among his biggest hits are “Room Full of Roses,” “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time,” and the remake of the Soul hit “Stand by Me”. He is also the cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl McVoy, Jim Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart.
He was born to Mr. and Mrs. A.S. Gilley in Natchez, the seat of Adams County in western Mississippi. For many years, Gilley lived in the shadow of his cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, the rock and roll singer and musician in the 1950s. The two as children grew up close by each other; Gilley lived just across the Mississippi River from Louisiana where Lewis grew up. Gilley, Lewis, and another cousin Jimmy Swaggart played piano together as children. This is when Gilley first learned to play the piano. Together, they all sang boogie-woogie and Gospel music, however, Gilley didn’t consider himself a professional singer until Jerry Lee hit the top of the charts in the 1950s. Mickey cut a few singles on his own in late 1950s and played sessions in New Orleans with producer Huey Meaux. In 1958, he had a record “Call Me Shorty” on the Dot label and it sold well. In the 1960s, he played at many clubs and bars, getting a following at the Nesadel Club in Houston, Texas. In 1967, Paula Records released Gilley’s first album called Down the Line and the following, he had a minor hit from the album called “Now I Can Live Again”.
In 1970, Gilley opened up his first club in Pasadena, Texas, called Gilley’s Club, replacing the club that was there called Shelley’s Club. The club later became known as the “world’s biggest honky tonk.” He owned “Gilley’s Club” with former owner of Shelley’s Club named Sherwood Cryer, who asked Gilley to re-open the bar with him. The club portion of Gilley’s burned in 1990, while the rodeo arena portion was razed in 2005 to make way for a school.
In 1974, Gilley recorded a song that originally was only supposed to be recorded for fun entitled “Room Full of Roses”, written by Tim Spencer of the Sons of the Pioneers, which was a one-time hit for George Morgan. The song was released by Astro Records that year, and then Playboy Records got a hold of the single, and got national distribution for “Room Full of Roses”. From then on, Gilley was signed to Playboy Records working with his long-time friend Eddie Kilroy. “Room Full of Roses” became the song that put Gilley on national radar, hitting the very top of the Country charts that year, as well as making it to #100 on the pop music charts. “Room Full of Roses” today remains as one of his signature songs.
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character who has become an icon for the Walt Disney Company. Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and voiced by Walt Disney. The Walt Disney Company celebrates his birth as November 18, 1928 upon the release of Steamboat Willie, although Mickey had already appeared six months earlier in Plane Crazy. The anthropomorphic mouse has evolved from being simply a character in animated cartoons and comic strips to become one of the most recognizable symbols in the world. Mickey is currently the main character in the Disney Channel’s Playhouse Disney series “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”. Mickey is the leader of The Mickey Mouse Club.
In late 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced that they will begin to re-brand the Mickey Mouse character by moving away from his pleasant, cheerful image and reintroducing the mischievous and cunning side of his personality.
Mickey was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios.
When Disney asked for a larger budget for his popular Oswald series, Mintz announced that Disney could keep doing the Oswald series, as long as he agreed to a budget cut and went on the payroll. Mintz owned Oswald and thought he had Disney over a barrel. Angrily, Disney refused the deal and returned to produce the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owed Mintz. Disney was dismayed at the betrayal by his staff, but determined to restart from scratch. The new Disney Studio initially consisted of animator Ub Iwerks and a loyal apprentice artist, Les Clark. One lesson Disney learned from the experience was to thereafter always make sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company.
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. During his career he has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award. Working as a performer since he was a small child, he was a superstar as a teenager for the films in which he played Andy Hardy, and he has had one of the longest careers of any actor.
Rooney was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a vaudeville family. His father, Joseph Yule, was from Scotland, and his mother, Nellie W., was from Kansas City, Missouri. Both parents were in vaudeville, and appearing in a Brooklyn production of A Gaiety Girl when Joseph, Jr. was born. He began performing at the age of 17 months as part of his parents' routine, wearing a specially tailored tuxedo.
The Yules separated in 1924 during a slump in vaudeville, and in 1925, Nell Yule moved with her son to Hollywood, where she managed a tourist home. Fontaine Fox had placed a newspaper ad for a dark-haired child to play the role of "Mickey McGuire" in a series of short films. Lacking the money to have her son's hair dyed, Mrs. Yule took her son to the audition after applying burnt cork to his scalp. Joe got the role and became "Mickey" for 78 of the comedies, running from 1927 to 1936, starting with Mickey's Circus, released September 4, 1927. These had been adapted from the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, which contained a character named Mickey McGuire. Joe Yule briefly became "Mickey McGuire" legally in order to trump an attempted copyright lawsuit. Rooney later claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him, although Disney always said that he had changed the name from "Mortimer Mouse" to "Mickey Mouse" on the suggestion of his wife.
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian?American actor, author, comedian, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the 1970s, Fox’s roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, for which he won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty from Spin City, for which he won an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, and disclosed his condition to the public in 1998. Fox semi-retired from acting in 2000 as the symptoms of his disease worsened. He has since become an activist for research toward finding a cure.
This led him to create the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and on March 5, 2010, Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet gave him a honoris causa doctorate for his work in advocating a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
Since 2000 Fox has mainly worked as a voice over actor in films such as Stuart Little, and taken minor TV roles such as in Boston Legal and Scrubs. He has also released three books, Lucky Man: A Memoir, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010.