Greenwood Brooklyn
The men and women interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
List activity
957 views
• 1 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
41 people
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jean Michel Basquiat began painting graffiti in New York in 1977. He always signed his works with SAMO, which means "Same Old Shit". His works came to the attention of the American painter Keith Haring, who drew inspiration for his own work from New York graffiti paintings. Basquiat also made drawings on paper, sheet metal, T-shirts and other materials. And assemblages were created from scrap. In 1980 he took part in an exhibition together with Jenny Holzer, John Ahearn and several other artists. The following year, the medium "Artforum" reported on Basquiat in a major article.
Further exhibitions followed, which contributed to his popularity. He presented his work in 1981 at the exhibition "New York, New Wave" at P.S.1. His contacts with the director Julian Schnabel, who made a film about Basquiat in 1996, as well as other acquaintances with artists such as the American painter Willem de Kooning also advanced his career - also in the international art scene. In 1982 an exhibition of his works opened in Italy. In the same year, at the age of 21, he was invited to take part in the documenta in Kassel.
In 1983 he met Andy Warhol, which not only developed into a friendship. Warhol became his mentor and supporter. The relationship developed into a working group and joint exhibitions followed. Warhol called Basquiat the first black superstar artist. His works quickly became sought after by critics, collectors and artists. He made his breakthrough with mixed media, using colored pencils, oil pastels, pastels, watercolors, pencils, charcoal and acrylics. He used it to design canvases and paper, adding columns of words and grimaces or the copyright symbol.
In the 1980s, Jean Michel Basquiat became one of the most important figures in the New York art scene alongside artists such as Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and Francesco Clemente. In his second phase, Basquiat emphasized the figurative nature of his subjects. Nevertheless, his roots in graffiti art cannot be denied, they are always present. He created paintings with large formats and fast movements. He used Jackson Pollock's drip painting technique by letting the paint fall onto the surface. Basquiat's themes in his art included protesting against racial discrimination.
With his works, the artist also wanted to draw attention to the difficult conditions of the weaker people in society. Basquiat was very productive in his short artistic career. His complete works number several hundred Work.
Jean Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.Plot: Section 176, Lot 44603- Albert Anastasia was born February 26, 1903, in Calabria, Italy, famous for its hams and the 'ndrangheta, which was every bit as vicious as the Sicilian Mafia. He was brought to America as a child along with his eight brothers. When he was starting in organized crime, he helped Salvatore Lucania, who later became known as Lucky Luciano, murder Giuseppe Masseria (aka "Joe The Boss" or "The Chinese"). When the "Boss of Bosses", Salvatore Maranzano, was murdered by Luciano, La Cosa Nostra was divided into different families known as The Commission. The bosses of the family Anastasia belonged to were brothers Vincent Mangano and Philip Mangano.
It wasn't long before Anastasia started to lust for power. As the underboss, he and Vincent Mangano often fought physically. Anastasia, being younger, would usually win. Anastasia's old friend and boss of the Luciano family, Frank Costello, soon found himself in a pickle when his partner, Vito Genovese, returned from Italy after nine years' exile. Costello needed Anastasia's help but couldn't do a thing unless he had an entire family behind him. Costello and Anastasia soon came up with the idea of killing the Manganos. On April 19, 1951, one of the most mysterious murders in Mafia history occurred. The body of Phil Mangano was found in a marshland with three bullets in the back of his head and two in each cheek. When the police tried to contact his brother, they couldn't reach him. When Vincent didn't show up at his brother's funeral, the police and Mafia bosses assumed that Vincent had been murdered as well. Frank Costello stuck up for Anastasia when the families had a sit-down to discuss the murder, saying that the Manganos were planning to kill him. Anastasia was now the boss of the former Mangano family.
After he became the boss, he and his younger brother, Anthony Anastasia (aka "Tough Tony") - who changed his last name to Anastasio, most likely in order to avoid public connections with his brother--ran the Brooklyn waterfronts for over a decade. When Lucky Luciano was arrested, Albert and his brother Tony sabotaged a huge French ocean liner moored at a pier and spread the word that it had been done by Nazi saboteurs. They then made a deal with the US government that they would "protect" the waterfront from further "sabotage" in exchange for Luciano's release. A compromise was reached in which Luciano was sent to a minimum-security prison. Under Luciano's order, Anastasia became the head of the Mafia's enforcement arm, known as Murder Inc. This group of killers was responsible for an estimated 700 to 1000 murders, the large number of killings attributed to Anastasia's hot temper and love of violence. When he saw an interview with a New York shop owner named Arnold Schuster, who had recognized notorious bank robber Willie Sutton on the street and notified the police, who then arrested Sutton, Anastasia immediately ordered that Schuster be killed; he had no connection with Sutton, but his reasoning for ordering Schuster's murder what that "I don't like rats".
Schuster's death enraged the public as well as the other Mafia bosses. A few years later Luciano was deported to Italy, and the Italian government then exiled him to Sicily where, during WW II, he and the local Mafia ingratiated themselves with US forces after the invasion of Sicily by identifying and helping capture "fascists" and "fascist sympathizers" (most of whom, strangely enough, turned out to be Luciano's competitors in his various criminal enterprises).
When Luciano left, Genovese wanted more and more power, but Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia and Anastasia's underboss Frank Scalise ran things. Genovese was growing irritated with Albert because of the many murders committed by Albert's crew, which Genovese considered unjustified and which went against the Mafia's laws. Albert was also selling memberships for his family for a few thousand dollars apiece. Genovese hired future boss Vincent Gigante (aka "The Chin") to kill Costello. In 1957 Costello was shot in the head by Gigante, but Costello's phenomenal luck held and he was only grazed by the bullet. However, the assassination attempt persuaded him to semi-retire from his life of crime. By tradition, an underboss was murdered before the boss, in order to prevent retaliation. Anastasia's strongest ally, Joe Adonis, was suddenly deported to Italy. His underboss, Frank Scalise, was murdered not long afterwards when he went out to buy some fruit.
One of Anastasia's capos, Carlo Gambino, who later became the most powerful Mafia boss in US history, was secretly meeting with Vito Genovese to discuss the planned killing of Anastasia. Genovese promised that Gambino would be named the boss of the family if he killed Anastasia. Carlo could not refuse. Anastasia was about the same age, so by the time Carlo became boss, he wouldn't have much longer to live. Gambino consulted Joe Profaci, another Mafia boss, and the two hired the Gallo brothers, including the infamous Joe Gallo (aka "Crazy Joe"), to kill Anastasia. Anastasia's favorite barber shop was on the bottom floor of the famous Park Sheraton Hotel. He loved getting his beard trimmed and the feel of the towel on his face. When the barber put the towel on Albert's face, two of the three Gallo brothers rushed in and fired five shots into Anastasia, blasting him out of the barber's chair. The New York criminal and law enforcement communities were relieved that "The Lord High Executioner" had been taken out. Some people, however, were not so happy about it, and one of the most troubled was future boss John Gotti. Albert had been his role model and, at the time, his one hope of getting in the family. Albert's brother Tough Tony continued to control the waterfronts after Albert's death.Plot: Section 39, Lot 38325, Grave 182 - Franklin Bartlett was born on 10 September 1847 in Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA. He died in 1909.Plot: Section 70, Lot 11725
- Writer
- Music Department
- Composer
Renowned composer ("West Side Story", "Candide", "On The Town"), conductor, arranger, pianist, educator, author, TV/radio host, educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University (BA) with Walter Piston. Edward Burlingame Hill and A. Tillman Merritt. He studied piano with Helen Coates, Heinrich Gebhard and Isabelle Vengerova, at the Curtis Institute with Fritz Reiner, and at the Berkshire Music Center with Serge Koussevitzky (and became an assistant to Koussevitzky). He was assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943-1944, and conductor of the New York Symphony, 1945-1948.
He was music advisor to the Israel Philharmonic from 1948-1949, and a member of the faculty at the Berkshire Music Center from 1948 (though he did take leaves of absence), and head of the conducting department there in 1951. He was Professor of Music at Brandeis University, 1951-1956; and co-conductor of the New York Philharmonic, 1957-1958, and music director there after 1958. He won an Emmy award for his televised Young People's Concerts. He was guest conductor of symphony orchestras in the USA and Europe, and conducted the Israel Philharmonic seven times between 1947 and 1957. He toured the US with Koussevitzky in 1951, and was the first American to conduct at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, in 1953. He was awarded the Sonning Prize in Denmark, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
He joined ASCAP in 1944, and his chief musical collaborators included Betty Comden, Adolph Green, John Latouche, and Stephen Sondheim. His song compositions include "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", "Some Other Time", "I Can Cook, Too", "I Get Carried Away", "Lucky to Be Me", "Ohio", "A Quiet Girl", "It's Love", "A Little Bit in Love", "Wrong Note Rag", "Glitter and Be Gay", "El Dorado", "The Best of All Possible Worlds", "Maria", "Tonight", "Something's Coming", "I Feel Pretty", "Cool", "America", and "Gee, Officer Krupke".Plot: Section G, Lot 43642- Charles Bonner was born on 14 October 1896 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Adam Had Four Sons (1941), The Loretta Young Show (1953) and Lux Video Theatre (1950). He died on 21 March 1965 in the USA.Plot: Section 165, Lot 25874
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
Plot: Section 163, Lot 21285- Actress
- Soundtrack
Anna Case was born on 29 October 1889 in Clinton, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hidden Truth (1919), La Fiesta (1926) and Hearst-Pathé News, No. 54 (1917). She was married to Clarence H. Mackay. She died on 7 January 1984 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Section 125, Lot 29275- Additional Crew
- Producer
Schuyler G. Chapin was born on 13 February 1923 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer, known for Great Performances (1971), Bernstein in London: Verdi's Requiem (1970) and Bernstein on Beethoven: A Celebration in Vienna (1970). He was married to Elizabeth Steinway. He died on 7 March 2009 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Garrison Family Mausoleum- Kate Claxton was born in 1850 in Somerville, New Jersey, USA. She was a writer, known for The Two Orphans (1911). She was married to Charles A. Stevenson and Isadore Lyon. She died on 5 May 1924 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Section 171, Lot 11581
- John Costelloe was born on 8 November 1961 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Die Hard 2 (1990), Black Rain (1989) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). He died on 18 December 2008 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
The man many consider to have possessed the greatest voice ever in popular music, Alan Dale had a career that spanned three decades and 16 record labels. At age 17 he was a big-band vocalist, first with Carmen Cavallaro, then George Paxton. In 1948 he achieved stardom via CBS' musical quiz show Sing It Again (1950) (this is the program referred to in the James Stewart film Pot o' Gold (1941))). His own The Alan Dale Show (1948) (Dumont and CBS) was the first television program kinescoped for showing in other parts of the country.
By 1951 Dale was one of the hottest singers around. Then fate dealt him a terrible blow. Overwork, combined with unhappy events in his private life, aggravated an ulcer condition, and he collapsed during one of his live TV shows. By the time he had recovered his health he had lost all of his shows. His climb back began with old friend Bob Thiele, then A&R chief of Coral Records. Previously, Thiele had produced many of Alan's hits, and proceeded to do so again with "Oh, Marie", "I'm Sorry", "Cherry Pink", "Sweet and Gentle" and "Rockin the Cha Cha". The success of the latter led to Dale's starring in the 1957 film Don't Knock the Rock (1956). Unfortunately, the dark and seamy side of show business eventually caused Alan to become disillusioned (as detailed in his autobiography "The Spider and the Marionettes") and, quite deliberately, he gradually faded from the spotlight. Which is our loss, because Alan Dale was one of the very best (Mel Tormé mentioned him in his book "My Singing Teachers"), and he deserves to be rediscovered, just as Tony Bennett has been.Plot: Hillside Mausoleum, Phase 3, Second floor Crypt 3245F- Music Department
- Writer
- Producer
Fred Ebb was born on 8 April 1928 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Chicago (2002), Cabaret (1972) and Shame (2011). He died on 11 September 2004 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Section 20, Lot 43458- Larry Gallo was born on 3 November 1927 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He died on 16 May 1968 in East Meadow, Long Island, New York, USA.Plot: Section 12, Lot 40314
- Percy Gaunt was born in 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Percy died on 5 September 1896 in Palenville, New York, USA.Plot: Section 72, Lot 1866
- William J. Gaynor was born on 2 February 1848 in Oriskany, New York, USA. He was married to Augusta C. Mayer. He died on 10 September 1913 in aboard RMS Baltic.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born on 8 May 1829 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Louis Moreau was a composer, known for Original Sin (2001), Little Women (2019) and The Lovebirds (2020). Louis Moreau died on 18 December 1869 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Plot: Section M/N, Lot 19581- Gabriel Harrison was born on 17 November 1972 in Hong Kong, China. He is an actor, known for The Touch (2002), Hanky Panky (1999) and Violent Cop (2000).
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
A storybook hero, the original screen cowboy, ever forthright and honest, even when (as was often the case) he played a villain, William S. Hart lived for a while in the Dakota Territory, then worked as a postal clerk in New York City. In 1888 he began to study acting. In 1899 he created the role of Messala in "Ben-Hur", and received excellent reviews for his lead part in "The Virginian" (1907). His first film was a two-reeler, His Hour of Manhood (1914). In 1915 he signed a contract with Thomas H. Ince and joined Ince's Triangle Film Company. Two years later he followed Ince to Famous Players-Lasky and received a very lucrative contract from Adolph Zukor. His career began to dwindle in the early 1920s due to the publicity surrounding a paternity suit against him, which was eventually dismissed. He made his last film, Tumbleweeds (1925), for United Artists and retired to a ranch in Newhall, CA. By that time audiences were more interested in the antics of a Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson than the Victorian moralizing of Hart. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, NY.Plot: Section 191, Lot 29116- Thomas Hastings was born on 15 October 1784 in Washington, Connecticut, USA. He died in 1872.Plot: Section 49, Lot 7156
- Best-known for performing the most popular baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat." Filmed as one of the first talkies, 5 years before The Jazz Singer (1927), Casey at the Bat (1922), was included in Ken Burns' Baseball (1994). Hopper, a fervent New York Giant fan, first performed the then-unknown poem to the Giants and Chicago Cubs, on the day his friend, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tim Keefe had his record 19 game winning streak stopped, August 14, 1888. The dying General William T. Sherman was also in the audience that evening, along with Keefe and his brother-in-law shortstop/attorney John Montgomery Ward. 2 months later the Giants won New York's first world championship.
Hopper recited Casey for almost 40 years in films, on stage, records, radio etc. Known as the "Husband of His Country" for his 6 marriages. He became totally hairless, with blue-tinged skin, possibly from reaction to a patent medicine. Even so, his powerful voice and great sense of humor mesmerized women all his life. One of his wives was the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Their son, the white-maned William Hopper, played private investigator Paul Drake on Perry Mason for many years. - Born on July 9, 1819, in Spencer, Massachusetts, inventor Elias Howe was raised on a farm and received only sporadic schooling. Fascinated from an early age with machinery, he worked at his father's gristmill and sawmill and later became an apprentice at several machine shops. As a teenager he traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, and got a job with a watchmaker. While working there one day he overheard several men talking about the idea of a machine that would do automatic sewing. Intrigued with the concept, he set out to develop such a machine. By 1845 he had developed a machine that featured a needle with an eye to carry an upper thread and a shuttle-like holder for the lower thread, which worked in concert to fasten stitches to fabric at consistent intervals. He patented the device in 1848, but could find no company willing to manufacture it. He traveled to England, where he sold one machine and the patent rights to a British company that manufactured corsets
Upon returning to the US in 1849, he discovered that several other inventors had developed sewing machines based on his designs and were in violation of his patent rights (one of them was Isaac Singer, who later founded the world-famous Singer Sewing Machine Co.). He took them to court for patent infringement, and in 1854 a court ruled that he should be awarded royalties on all sewing machines manufactured in the US until his patent expired in 1867. After the Civil War--in which he served as an officer in the Union Army, raising a regiment of Connecticut soldiers--he set up a factory in Bridgeport to manufacture his machines.
Elias Howe died in New York City on October 3, 1867.Plot: Section H, Lot 19967/70 - Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Paul Jabara was born on 31 January 1948 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Thank God It's Friday (1978), Eraser (1996) and All Good Things (2010). He died on 29 September 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Plot: Section 34, Lot 33232- Writer
- Music Department
- Composer
American poet, novelist and essayist James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, FL, in 1871. He came from a musically inclined family--his brother was noted composer and songwriter J. Rosamond Johnson--and received his B.A. from Atlanta University and his M.A. from that institution two years later, a significant accomplishment in an era when many blacks were prevented from getting any higher education at all.
He was hired as a teacher and the principal at an all-black school in Jacksonville. At the same time he was studying law and in 1897 he received his law degree and was admitted to the Florida bar, the first black attorney to do so since the end of the Civil War. In 1901 he relocated to New York City, where he joined his brother Rosamond and his partner in writing songs for both the stage and light opera, and the team was quite successful. One song was so popular that they cleared $13,000 from it--an astonishing sum at the time--and used that money to travel to France, where they spent several months partying and traveling before returning to the US.
He was soon appointed as the American Consul in Venezuela, and his tenure there was so productive he was appointed to the same position in Nicaragua, again with great success. In 1910 he married Grace Nail, and two years later produced his first novel, the (fictional) "Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" (the subject was so sensitive at the time that the book was published with no writer's credit; it wasn't until 1927 that he was acknowledged as the author). He continued writing essays, books and songs and wrote the English libretto for the opera "Goyescas", which was presented at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1915. In addition, he served for many years as secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He returned to teaching in 1930--while still continuing his writing--and became Professor of Creative Literature at Fisk University. In 1934 he was named Visiting Professor of Literature at New York University.
On June 26, 1938, Johnson was driving through a railroad crossing near his summer home in Bar Harbor, ME, when his car was struck by a train. His wife was seriously injured but survived. Johnson was killed instantly.Plot: Section 193, Lot 27330- Early information on Florence La Badie is sketchy. She is thought to have been born in New York City in 1888, and was either taken away from or given up for adoption by her birth mother. Florence was adopted by a married couple named LaBadie, who legally gave the child their last name. Her adoptive father, Joseph LaBadie, is believed to have been an attorney in Canada, and the family spent time in Montreal, where Florence grew up. She was educated in both Montreal and New York, and after graduation from high school she worked as a model for well-known illustrator (and, later, film director) Penrhyn Stanlaws.
She took up a career on the stage, first appearing there in 1908. She signed up with director Chauncey Olcott's theatrical company, and went on the road with them. In 1909 she went with a friend, Mary Pickford, to the American Biograph film studio in New York to watch Pickford at work in In the Window Recess (1909), and Pickford got her a bit part in the picture. La Badie didn't make any films for a year after that, though, at which time she signed a contract with Biograph.
In 1911 she left Biograph for Thanhouser. She met with great success in Thanhouser's pictures, and was gradually promoted to lead roles, working there from 1911-1917 (making her the player who worked at Thanhouser the longest). She became the best-known of all of Thanhouser's players and was wildly popular in fan magazines and trade journals.
Although she was engaged twice (to actor Val Hush and writer Daniel Carson Goodman), she never married. She was the "companion" of film mogul Marcus Loew for several years.
On August 28, 1917, while driving a car near Ossining, New York, with her fiancé Daniel Goodman, the car's brakes failed and it plunged down an embankment at high speed, rolling over when it hit the bottom. Goodman escaped with relatively minor injuries, but she was thrown from the car and incurred a compound fracture of the pelvis. She was taken to a hospital in Ossining, where her conditioned worsened. She died of septicemia (infection) on August 28. She was 29 years old.Plot: Section 113, Lot 17187 - Harriet Laidlaw is known for Votes for Women (1912). She was previously married to James Leeds Laidlaw.Plot: Section 172, Lot 13406
- Laura Jean Libbey is known for A Poor Girl's Romance (1926), In a Moment of Temptation (1927) and When Love Grows Cold (1926).Plot: Section 196, Lot 29258
- Julie Mathilde Lippmann was born on 27 June 1864 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Julie Mathilde was a writer, known for The Hoodlum (1919). Julie Mathilde died on 10 April 1952 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.Plot: Section 159, Lot 14229
- Seth Low was born on 18 January 1850 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He died on 17 September 1916.Plot: Section 93, Lot 127
- Sound Department
John MacKay is known for The Ringo Bingo Kid (2007).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jovial, somewhat flamboyant Frank Morgan (born Francis Wuppermann) will forever be remembered as the title character in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but he was a veteran and respected actor long before he played that part, and turned in outstanding performances both before and after that film. One of 11 children of a wealthy manufacturer, Morgan followed his older brother, Ralph Morgan (born Raphael Wuppermann) into the acting profession, making his Broadway debut in 1914 and his film debut two years later. Morgan specialized in playing courtly, sometimes eccentric or befuddled but ultimately sympathetic characters, such as the alcoholic telegraph operator in The Human Comedy (1943) or the shop owner in The Shop Around the Corner (1940). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Affairs of Cellini (1934). Frank Morgan died at age 59 of a heart attack on September 18, 1949 in Beverly Hills, California.Plot: Section 168, Lot 14447- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ralph Morgan was born on 6 July 1883 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Strange Interlude (1932), Rasputin and the Empress (1932) and The Power and the Glory (1933). He was married to Grace Arnold. He died on 11 June 1956 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Section 168, Lot 14447- American short story writer and novelist, was born the son of Andrew Robertson, a ship captain on the Great Lakes, and Amelia (Glassford) Robertson. Morgan went to sea as a cabin boy and was in the merchant service from 1866 to 1877, rising to first mate. Tiring of life at sea, he studied jewelry making at Cooper Union in New York City and worked for 10 years as a diamond setter. When that work began to impair his vision, he turned to writing sea stories, placing his work in such popular magazines as McClure's and the Saturday Evening Post. Robertson never made much money from his writing, a circumstance that greatly embittered him. Nevertheless, from the early 1890s until his death in 1915 he supported himself as a writer and enjoyed the company of artists and writers in a small circle of New York's bohemia. Robertson was found dead of heart disease in an Atlantic City hotel room.Plot: Section 192, Lot 23502
- Eli Siegel is known for Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana (2005).Plot: Section 82, Lot 43718
- Mary Smith is known for The Flower of Faith (1916), When Love Leads (1912) and Literature and Love (1913).Plot: 160 plot 10554
- Prohibition-era gang boss Johnny Torrio was born Giovanni Torrio in Irsina, Italy. When Johnny was two years old his father died, and his mother left Italy for New York City.
Torrio got his start in the criminal underworld at an early age, working as a bouncer in several Manhattan dives. He eventually joined a street gang and within a short time was the gang's leader. His leadership abilities resulted in the gang accruing a considerable amount of money, and the savvy Torrio opened up a legitimate pool hall as a front for the gang and a place they could meet and plan their criminal activities, such as gambling and loan-sharking. His abilities brought him to the attention of the leaders of the notorious Five Points Gang, among whose members were a squat Brooklyn gangster named Al Capone. Capone and Torrio developed a close, and lifelong, friendship, with Capone looking to Torrio as his mentor. Torrio had a mentor, too, in Five Points boss Paolo Vaccarelli (aka Paul Kelly), who taught him invaluable lessons about how to survive and prosper in organized crime. One of them was to stop acting, dressing and swearing like a street thug and adopt a more diplomatic, conservative way of doing things, a lesson that Torrio took to heart, he earned the nickname "The Fox" because of his slyness at getting what he wanted and keeping out of the spotlight at the same time. Torrio's gang branched out into legitimate businesses, among the first to do so, but its main sources of income were prostitution, the numbers racket, truck hijacking and drug-trafficking.
One of Torrio's mob associates was a squat killer named Frankie Yale. At a time when Capone and Torrio were in trouble with the New York authorities (Capone was facing a murder charge and looking at some considerable prison time), Yale suggested they take off for Chicago until the heat died down. Torrio owned some brothels and bars in Chicago and in 1919 took Capone with him to work his places as a bouncer/bartender. When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, Torrio immediately saw the huge profits that could be made in smuggling, making and manufacturing illegal liquor, and tried to persuade Chicago gang boss Jim Colosimo to get in on the ground floor, but Colosimo didn't think the heat he would draw from the police and rival mobsters was worth it, and refused. Not long afterward, Torrio invited Colosimo to a meeting in Colosimo's restaurant. After Colosimo arrived and sat down at a table, a squad of gunmen showed up and shot him dead. Torrio, Capone and Yale were suspected of the killing, but nothing was ever proven and they were never arrested for it. Torrio took over Colosimo's vast criminal holdings and entered the bootlegging business.
The Capone-Torrio mob prospered, raking in millions from bootlegging, prostitution, loan-sharking and gambling. They controlled criminal activity in the Loop, the city's main business district, and the ethnic areas of the South Side. However, one area they did not control was the city's prestigious Gold Coast, including the wealthy lakefront area. That was controlled by Irish gangster Charles Dion O'Bannion and his North Side gang. The Torrio/Capone and O'Bannion gangs entered into a somewhat uneasy truce, but it didn't last long because Torrio and O'Bannion hated each other. O'Bannion was also having trouble with a vicious and extremely violent Italian gang led by the notorious Genna brothers. The Gennas wanted to kill O'Bannion and wipe out his mob, but Torrio stopped them because he didn't want the heat that a full-fledged gang war would bring. However, when Torrio discovered that O'Bannion had cheated him out of more than $500,000 in a bootlegging deal, he gave the Gennas the go-ahead to kill O'Bannion. Unfortunately for Torrio, he was right about the possible repercussions from O'Bannion's murder. O'Bannion's allies in the North Side gang waged a brutal war against the combined Torrio/Capone/Genna forces, known as The Outfit. Murders were followed by reprisal murders, and on January 24, 1925, several of O'Bannion's mobsters spotted Torrio's car on the street and opened fire on it. Torrio was hit at least five times; the would-be assassins thought he was dead so they left the scene. Torrio survived, but eventually decided to leave Chicago. Three of the six Genna brothers were soon murdered, and the gang war continued for several more years, eventually resulting in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. When Torrio recovered from surgery for his wounds, he went to prison for a year, having been convicted of several charges of violating the Volstead Act (Prohibition). Upon his release from prison he was a changed man. The assassination attempt had deeply affected him, and he was troubled by the continuing and escalating violence he saw in the underworld. He decided to retire. He gathered his wife and mother and moved to Italy, leaving Capone in charge of his holdings.
Torrio stayed in Italy for several years, returning to the US in the 1930s to testify at Capone's income-tax-evasion trial. While in New York he met with gang boss Lucky Luciano and suggested that Luciano and other crime bosses stop their internecine wars and create one syndicate, a conglomerate of the various gangs that would work together for the good of the organization. Luciano liked it and took the idea to the other New York bosses. Eventually the idea took fruition, and an organization known variously as "The Outfit", "The Syndicate", "The Commission" and a host of other names was formed that consisted not only of the bosses of the New York gangs but of gang bosses from across the US.
In 1957 Torrio was sitting in a barber's chair waiting to get a haircut when he keeled over. He had had a massive heart attack, and although he was taken to the hospital and placed in an oxygen tent, he died several hours later. True to Torrio's code, his associates kept their mouths shut and no one found about about Torrio's death until almost a month after his burial.Plot: Section 130, Lot 36321 - William H. West was born on 26 July 1860 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fatal Opal (1914), On the Warpath (1911) and Mysteries of the Grand Hotel (1915). He was married to Roumelia G. Morris. He died on 20 August 1915 in Glendale, California, USA.Plot: Section 197, Lot 29484
- Composer
- Music Department
Elliott Cook Carter Jr. was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American Western-classical-music composer who was born in and lived in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which were performed all over the world, included orchestral, chamber, solo, and vocal works.
He was extremely productive in his latter years, during which he wrote more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100, and even more since he turned 100. He died at the remarkable age of 103 from natural causes.- Actress
- Soundtrack
British character actress, best known as Fanny La Fan in the long-running sit-com 'Allo 'Allo. She continued to act until her eighties before spending her final years living at Denville Hall, the actors retirement home in Middlesex.She was cremated at the Crematorium in Ruislip, England.- Doris Hare was born on 1 March 1905 in Bargoed, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for On the Buses (1969), The Avengers (1961) and Second Best (1994). She was married to John Fraser Roberts. She died on 30 May 2000 in Denville Hall, Northwood, Hillingdon, London, England, UK.She was cremated at the Crematorium in Ruislip, England.
- Actress
Betsy Blair was born in Cliffside, New Jersey, a child model before finding work as a chorus dancer at the early age of 15. She received her first mini-break on Broadway in "Panama Hattie" in 1940 delivering a single line, but by the next year she had copped the ingénue lead in William Saroyan's "The Beautiful People." At around the same time, she met dancer extraordinaire Gene Kelly and married him in 1940. Despite her background in dance, Betsy was admittedly not in the same league as a Vera-Ellen, Cyd Charisse, or Ann Miller, so she was never afforded the opportunity to glide with Gene in films. Moreover, she never even appeared in a musical film.
She made her large screen debut in 1947 and, for the next couple of years, appeared in a number of above-average dramas such as The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947), A Double Life (1947) starring Ronald Colman, The Snake Pit (1948), wherein she played a demented inmate alongside Olivia de Havilland, and a shining role in Another Part of the Forest (1948). After such promise, things came to a halt. Betsy had been involved in SAG politics as early as 1946 proposing the formation of the first Anti-Discrimination committee. Within a year the House Un-American Activities Committe began to investigate Betsy and others in the motion picture industry and what they considered left-wing extremist viewpoints. Her name appeared in the "Red Channels" and that was that. Her career was undone. By the early 1950s, all film offers had dried up. The only reason Betsy won the female lead in the 1955 cinematic classic Marty (1955) was because her husband threatened to stop shooting at MGM if they didn't let her work despite the blacklist. It would be the role of a lifetime for Betsy. As the touching plain-Jane girlfriend of Ernest Borgnine's title butcher, Betsy won the Cannes Film and British Film acting awards, not to mention an Oscar nomination. It did not help her overcome the blacklist, however.
By 1957, she was divorced from Kelly and had moved to Europe to avoid the Hollywood shun. Shortly thereafter, she lived with French actor Roger Pigaut. In 1963, she married producer/director Karel Reisz. They would remain together for almost 40 years until his death in London of a blood disorder in 2002. Betsy later published her memoirs and discussed quite candidly her life on Broadway, life with Gene Kelly, and life amid the blacklisting. She continued to live in England before passing away from cancer on 13th March, 2009. She was 85 years old.She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. Her ashes are with her daughter.