Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

Rubinstein was born in ?ód?, Poland on January 28, 1887, to a Jewish family. He was the youngest of 8 children. His father was a wealthy factory owner.

At the age of two, he demonstrated perfect pitch and a fascination with the piano, watching his elder sister’s piano lessons. By the age of four, he was already recognised as a child prodigy. The great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, on hearing the four-year-old child play, was greatly impressed and began to mentor the young prodigy. Rubinstein first studied piano in Warsaw. By the age of ten, Rubinstein moved to Berlin to continue his studies. In 1900 at age 13, he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, followed by appearances in Germany and Poland and further study with Karl Heinrich Barth. In 1904, Rubinstein moved to Paris to launch his career in earnest. There he met the composers Maurice Ravel and Paul Dukas and the violinist Jacques Thibaud. He also played Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in the presence of the composer. Through the family of Juliusz Wertheim he formed friendships with the violinist Paul Kochanski and composer Karol Szymanowski.

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky, better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He is also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings.

Born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in New York City, Shaw grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where, according to his autobiography his natural introversion was deepened by local antisemitism. Shaw began learning the saxophone when he was 13 years old, and by the age of 16, he switched to the clarinet and left home to tour with a band. Returning to New York, he became a session musician through the early 1930s. From 1925 until 1936, Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras, including those of Johnny Caverello and Austin Wylie. In 1929 and 1930 he played with Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, where he was exposed to symphonic music, which he would later incorporate in his arrangements.

Shaw first gained critical acclaim with his “Interlude in B-flat” at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York in 1935. During the swing era, Shaw’s big band was popular with hits like “Begin the Beguine”, “Stardust”, “Back Bay Shuffle”, “Moonglow”, “Rosalie” and “Frenesi”. He was an innovator in the big band idiom, using unusual instrumentation; “Interlude in B-flat”, where he was backed with only a rhythm section and a string quartet, was one of the earliest examples of what would be later dubbed third stream.

In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, he signed Billie Holiday as his band’s vocalist in 1938, becoming the first white bandleader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated Southern US. However, after recording “Any Old Time” she left the band due to hostility from audiences in the South, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more “mainstream” singer. His band became enormously successful, and his playing was eventually recognized as equal to that of Benny Goodman: longtime Duke Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard cited Shaw as his favorite clarinet player. In response to Goodman’s nickname, the “King of Swing”, Shaw’s fans dubbed him the “King of the Clarinet.” Shaw, however, felt the titles were reversed. “Benny Goodman played clarinet. I played music,” he said.

Audrey Meadows was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners.

Born as Audrey Cotter in Wu-ch’ang, China, the youngest of four children, her parents, the Rev Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor were Episcopal missionaries. She is the younger sister of actress Jayne Meadows.

Meadows’ family returned from China to their home in Sharon, Connecticut in the 1920s. After high school, she moved to New York City and became a singer in the Broadway show Top Banana before becoming a regular on the Bob and Ray Show. She was then hired to play Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show after the original Alice, Pert Kelton, who originated the role, left the show. When The Honeymooners became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS, Meadows continued in the role. She then returned to play Alice after a long hiatus, when Gleason produced occasional Honeymooners specials in the 1970s. Meadows had auditioned for Gleason and was initially turned down for being too chic and pretty for Alice. Meadows submitted a photo of herself looking plain and drab the next day and won the role.

Meadows appeared in a number of films, worked with Dean Martin on his television variety shows and celebrity roasts, and then returned to situation comedy in the 1980s playing the mother-in-law on Too Close for Comfort. She guest-starred on The Red Skelton Show show and made an appearance in an episode of The Simpsons, wherein she voiced the role of Bea Simmons, Grandpa Simpsons’ girlfriend. Her last work was on the sitcom Dave’s World, in which she played Kenny’s mother.