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Today's Birthday: 14 March Pick Another Birthday Date |
a2zpeople @ Sunday, 14 March 2010 Today's PeoplesKetcham, HankHank Ketcham was born on March 14, 1920, in Seattle; he wanted to be a
cartoonist since age 6. In 1938, Hank left college after his freshman
year. He went to California to work as an animator, first for Walter
Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker. Later Hank worked for Walt Disney,
where he helped draw "Bambi" and Donald Duck shorts. During World War
II, Hank joined the Navy, and kept drawing-- but now for training
material and posters. After the war, Hank was a freelance cartoonist
and drew magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post. But his dream
of having his own comic strip still eluded him. Hank was living in
Carmel, in October 1950, when his wife Alice, worn out by their
misbehaving kid, snapped at Hank one day: "Your son is a menace!"
History was about to be made. The mischievous adventures of his
4-year-old son Dennis gave Hank fodder to create the famous comic
strip, which made its debut on March 12, 1951, in 16 newspapers, and
was an instant hit. Hank named Mr. Wilson after a teacher he'd known,
and Dennis' friend Gina was named after 'Gina Lollobrigida' . Hank was doing the
strip daily, but eventually the work load was too heavy for one person,
and Hank built up a staff with comedy writers. His work led to the live
action "Dennis the Menace" (1959) TV series, which ran on CBS from 1959
to 1963, and is fondly remembered by baby boomers everywhere. The
entire country loved it, and Hank recalled: "I set the whole thing in
Wichita, Kansas, and as a result I got made an honorary mayor of
Wichita." The newspaper funnies gave rise to collected works of his
strips, 50 million "Dennis the Menace" books have been sold. In real
life, Hank remarried, then his 2nd marriage ended in divorce. He
married a 3rd time, to Rolande, and they had 2 wonderful children,
Scott and Dania. The comic strip continued to have tremendous success.
Hank stopped drawing the Sunday funnies in the mid-1980s. There was a
"Dennis" musical, and a 1993 movie. Hank retired from drawing the
weekday sketches in 1994, leaving the work to assistants, but he was
still overseeing it. March 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of "Dennis
the Menace," now running in 1,000 newspapers. Hank died on June 1,
2001, at his home in Pebble Beach; he was 81. In an interview, Hank had
shared his thoughts on his creation: "There's some little bright spot
in your day that reminds you that it's fun to smile."
Hank Ketcham took inspiration from the antics of his then-4-year-old
son and created and launched one of the most successful comic strips in
syndication. The year was 1951 and, before Ketcham's death in 2001,
Dennis the Menace had become a familiar panel in the funny papers in at
least 1,000 newspapers in 48 countries and in 19 languages. From early
on Ketcham assembled a team of writers and artists to produce the
strip, and only in 1994 did he retire altogether from it, turning over
the helm to his team. Henry King Ketcham grew up in Seattle and claims
that he was no more than 6 years old when he discovered that he wanted
to be a cartoonist. He had watched a family friend sketch Barney Google
and other then-popular cartoon figures and "couldn't wait to borrow his
'magic pencil' and try" creating his own magic sketching cartoon
characters. Eventually, his success in drawing was the impetus for
dropping out of the University of Washington while a freshman in 1938
and trying his hand in Hollywood where he contributed as an animator to
Walter Lantz' work and then that other Walter (a.k.a Walt) at Disney's
studios. Ketcham worked on "Pinocchio," "Bambi," "Fantasia" and Donald
Duck shorts. During World War II, he worked for the Navy drawing
cartoons for Navy posters, training material and the war bond market.
He settled in Carmel, California, after the war working at home as a
free-lance cartoonist. One day in 1950 his studio door flew open and
his then-wife Alice, in utter exasperation, exclaimed, "Your son is a
menace!" The son was their 4-year-old Dennis who while commissioned to
take a nap had instead managed to similate what looked like the results
of a tornado in his bedroom. The "menace" epithet and the image of the
tornado stuck. The lanky, bespectacled dad, who resembed Ketcham
himself, also became a fixture in the strip, which made its debut in
the following year in 16 newspapers. In just one year, a volume of
Dennis cartoons was on the best-seller list. Ketcham and his first wife
had separated when she died in 1959. He and his son Dennis drifted
apart, and they spoke infrequently in later life. In 1960, Ketcham
became fed up with many of the movers and shakers in the business of
marketing Dennis the Menace and moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where he
lived for 17 years, returning to the United States only infrequently.
He relied upon the Sears & Roebuck catalogues to keep abreast of the
ever changing American landscape. A second marriage ended in divorce,
but Ketcham married a third time and had two more children. He and his
family returned to the United States in 1977, setting up home in
Monterey, California, where he continued to work on the strip for
another 17 years. He had actually stopped drawing the Sunday strip in
the mid-1980s, but maintained control of its production and continued
to draw the weekday strip until at last relinquishing the helm in 1994.
Without "Dennis" he concentrated his artistic talents on a more serious
nature of oil and watercolor portraits, claiming that his paintings
were his true bid to a place in posterity. - Author: Anonymous
Patrick King Vance, Clarice'Clarice Vance' was a well known vaudeville headliner from the turn of the
century to 1910. Her bio from the Johnson Briscoe 1904 book "The
Actors' Birthday Book" states . . . "All lovers of vaudeville, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Canada Border to Mexico Gulf, are
familiar with the admirable methods of Clarice Vance, so well known by
her sobriquet of 'The Southern Singer.' The first few years of Miss
Vance's stage career were given over to farce comedy productions and it
was not until about 1897 that she awoke to the full possiblities of the
coon song. Since then she has made this particular style of song her
one big feature in the vaudevillle theaters and her popularity is truly
amazing." In 1904 a Boston ciritic wrote,"Her charm is as powerful as
it is indescribable". Between 1905 and 1909 she recorded for Edison
(two cylinders) and for Victor (1906-1909). Several of her Victor
recordings were big hits. Her recording of "I'm Wise" (1907) stayed in
the Victor catalogs for 15 years. Other hits were "He's a Cousin of
Mine" and "I'm Afraid to Come Home In the Dark". She played the Palace
of Varieties in London for 26 week in 1909 and in 1910 starred in "A
Skylark", a lavish Broadway musical production with Hazel Cox. Her
picture appeared in Vanity Fair. In 1904, she married Moses Gumble,
songwriter and New York manager of Remick Music Publishing. Together
they were part of the New York theatrical elite. Clarice's stature (and
she was over six feet tall) was such that all songs submitted to Remick
were reviewed for her exclusive use in vaudeville. The Gumbles divorced
in 1914 and Clarice nearly disappears from theatrical history. A single
engagement at the Tivoli Opera House in San Francisco in 1919 and a
brief appearance in movies, Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) and
Daughters of the Night (1924) signify the end of her theatrical career.
Today her records are prized and capture her unique spirit and subtle
comedy gift. Her whereabouts and activities from 1924 to 1951 remain a
mystery. Her picture graces dozens of pieces of sheet music from 1900
to 1914 . . . . but alas, references to her in show business
documentaries are almost nonexistent. Abel Green of Variety referred to
her in 1951 as one of the "vaudeville greats". Note: A complete
vaudeville sketch, "April First" written by Clarice in 1900 can be
accessed through the American Memories, Library of Congress Web site.
In 1951 she was committed to the Napa, Californina hospital for the
insane. At the time of her death in 1961 she had no friends or
relatives. Only through an odd coincidence was it discovered that the
deceased was Clarice Vance, a person of significant show business
importance. - Author: Anonymous Robey, LouiseLouise Ann Robey was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1960, the daughter of
an Air Force Major and a London stage actress. Robey was educated in
schools throughout Europe, and learned a number of languages while also
developing her talents in dance, music and painting. At age 15, she
studied dance at the London Royal Academy of Ballet, then returned to
Canada hoping to pursue a career in music and dance. In 1979, while
sunbathing on the French Riviera, Robey was spotted by the famed
photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, who photographed her and got her a
12-page spread in "Vogue Paris" that same year. Those pictures launched
Robey on a successful modeling career. Robey moved to America during
the early 1980s and formed a band in New York under the name "Louise
and the Creeps." They broke up before they recorded anything, but Robey
persevered. In 1984, Robey landed a recording contract on the Silver
Blue Label. Her debut album, "Robey" was released; it contained 8
tracks, including one which became the album's first single, the wildly
popular hit "One Night In Bangkok." This song reached #5 on the
Billboard Dance Chart in late 1984, but from the way it was played on
radio stations all over America, it seemed more popular than that, with
its great beat, and lyrics of a far-off land, and risqué nights. Other
singles followed. Beautiful Robey was a natural for TV, and in 1987 she
landed her signature role of Micki Foster in "Friday the 13th: The
Series" which ran for 3 seasons and 72 episodes. Robey was out of the
spotlight for 1991 but returned in 1992 with the erotic thriller
'Play Nice (1992)' . In 1994, Robey married Charles Francis Topham de Vere
Beauclerk, Lord of Burford (Burford is a small town near Oxford in the
United Kingdom). Robey's marriage to the Earl has made her Countess of
Burford. They have one son, James. Their marriage ended in early 2001,
and the two share custody of their son. Robey toured the UK briefly in
the summer of 2000 with I.E. Soul. In January 2001, Robey began
recording with producer Mark Harwood at Spring Vale Studios in Suffolk,
UK. Robey also has her own rock band Fourman Fubar, and is involved in
a dance music project titled "A Guy Called Dready." Robey is still
fondly remembered for "Friday the 13th: The Series," which is being
rerun in syndication. Robey got where she is today by hard work, though
her fans might say the results are nothing short of magical.
- Author: kdhaisch@aol.com |
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