Full list of A&E bios and profiles

February 23, 2014 By Lee

All images copyright A&E Television Networks and Biography.com

Below is a list of all of the biographies and profiles I wrote for A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com during the summer of 2012. Some of these profiles are linked directly to my website, while others are linked to the Biography.com site where they originally appeared.

July 2012
Musician Ronnie Wood
Circus founder Charles Ringling
Circus founder John Ringling
Congressman Barney Frank
Reggae artist Peter Tosh
Reggae star Jimmy Cliff
Singer Desmond Dekker
Soccer star Bobby Charlton
Singer Florence Welch
Prime Minister David Cameron
First Lady Samantha Cameron
Actress Amy Adams
Gymnast Gabby Douglas
Gymnast John Orozco
Gymnast Jordyn Wieber

August 2012
Gymnast Danell Leyva
Swimmer Allison Schmitt
Chef Jacques Torres
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Governor Susana Martinez
Politician Jean-Marie Le Pen
Governor Nikki Haley
Governor Brian Sandoval
Governor Scott Walker
Director Tony Scott
Director Ridley Scott
Music producer Sam Phillips
Actress Mayim Bialik (also here)
Actor Michael Gambon
Scientist Alan Turing
Chemist Rosalind Franklin
Physicist Satyendra Nath Bose
Tax specialist Janna Ryan
Second Lady Jill Biden
Former First Lady Ann Romney
Educator Bill Nye
Actress Linda Hamilton

September 2012
Senator Cory Booker
Mayor Julian Castro
Director Roger Corman
Explorer Martin Frobisher
Explorer Jacques Marquette

Director Roger Corman

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in September 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Roger Corman
Occupation: Actor, Director, Producer
Birth date: April 05, 1926 (Age: 87)
Education: Stanford University, Oxford University
Place of birth: Detroit, Michigan
Nickname: “B-movie King,” “King of the B-Movies”
AKA: Roger Corman
Full name: Roger William Corman
Zodiac sign: Aries

Best Known For

Roger Corman is a film director and producer who helmed B-Movie classics and helped launch the careers of James Cameron, John Sayles, Ron Howard and others.

Synopsis

Roger Corman was born on April 5, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. Beginning his film career as a messenger at 20th Century Fox, Corman became a prolific director and was responsible for creating drive-in classics including: The Little Shop of Horrors and The Pit and the Pendulum. As a producer and mentor Corman helped launch the careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme and numerous others. Corman was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2009.

Early Life

The talents of Roger William Corman as a film producer, director and actor may have been lost on the world had he pursued his initial career choice of industrial engineering.

Corman was born on April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. His family, including his brother, Eugene, relocated to Los Angeles, California, where Corman attended Beverly Hills High School and then Stanford University. While at Stanford, where he eventually earned a degree in industrial engineering, Corman enlisted in the V-12 Navy College Training Program and served for two years.

Upon his graduation, Corman worked for four days as an engineer at U.S. Electrical Motors in Los Angeles, then realized he wanted to pursue a career in film instead. He landed a job as a messenger at 20th Century Fox and contributed ideas to the film The Gunfighter, for which he received no credit. He left Fox, when to study English literature at Oxford University, and returned to Los Angeles in 1953 to begin his career as a producer, screenwriter and director.

Film Career

In the mid-1950s, Corman was producing films regularly, sometimes up to eight movies a year, among them The Little Shop of Horrors, Swamp Women and The Raven.

Soon Corman became known as the “B-movie king” for his output of low-budget films — about 350 in total — that grossed many times their production price. He earned his greatest acclaim as a director after producing a series of eight films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the 1960s. Seven of the eight starred Vincent Price.

There were several actors whose careers Corman launched: They include Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and William Shatner. In fact, Corman directed the acclaimed 1962 drama The Intruder, which starred Shatner in one of his earliest appearances in a lead role: It was the first film to tell the story of school integration in the south.

Corman also served as a mentor to then-relatively unknown film directors who would later become famous and successful, including Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola.

Throughout the 1960s, Corman was known for making films that gave voice to the counter-culture of the time. In 1967, Corman produced and directed The Trip, which was written by Jack Nicholson and starred Peter Fonda: The film began the psychedelic film craze of the last 1960s.

The following decade, Corman made many cult films and distributed them through New World Pictures, an independently owned production and distribution studio he and his brother founded in 1970. Corman sold the company to an investment group in 1983 and later formed two other production companies, Concorde Pictures and New Horizons.

Although he retired from directing in 1971, Corman worked on several other projects throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In 1990, he directed his last film, Frankenstein Unbound. In 2009 he produced a web series for Netflix and the following year, he produced two films for the Syfy cable television channel.

Awards and Recognition

As a result of his success and fame, in 2009 Corman was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his body of work. Several of his protégés offered him cameos in their films, including The Silence of the Lambs and The Godfather Part II. A documentary about Corman’s life and career, titled Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, premiered at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals in 2011 and A&E IndieFilms picked up the film’s television rights after a well-received screening at Sundance.

Senator Cory Booker

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in September 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Cory Booker
Occupation: Mayor
Birth date: April 27, 1969 (Age: 44)
Education: Stanford University, Yale Law School
Place of birth: Washington, D.C.
AKA: Cory Booker
Full name: Cory Anthony Booker
Zodiac sign: Taurus

Best Known For

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is best known for his unorthodox approach to politics, for his revolutionizing reforms to Newark’s crime rate and education, and for his personal willingness to help his constituents.

Synopsis

Cory Booker was born on April 27, 1969, in Washington, D.C., to affluent civil rights activists. He attended prestigious schools, including Stanford University and Yale Law School, and went on to become a politician in the city of Newark, New Jersey. Vowing to reduce the crime rate there and improve education and city services, Booker was elected mayor of Newark and made many of the changes he promised. An avid user of social media, particularly Twitter, Booker became known as the second most social mayor in the country. He also made headlines for saving a woman from a burning house, shoveling an elderly man’s snow-covered driveway and bringing some $100 million in private philanthropy to Newark.

Early Life

Before Cory Anthony Booker became one of America’s most well-known mayors, he was just a regular high school football star. He was born on April 27, 1969, in Washington D.C., to civil rights activists Cary Alfred and Carolyn Rose Booker, who were among the first black executives at IBM. They raised booker in a predominantly white, affluent town in New Jersey, where he would later serve as mayor.

Booker attended Stanford University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in sociology. In addition to playing varsity football, Booker served as senior class president and ran a student-run crisis hotline. Upon his graduation from Stanford, Booker was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.

He also attended Yale Law School, where he received his Juris Doctor and operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven. Despite his busy schedule, Booker made time to get involved in the National Black Law Students Association and in the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, serving as a Big Brother.

Political Career

Booker took an interest in local politics—particularly the Newark City Council—and ran against and defeated four-term City Council incumbent George Branch. To call attention to the city’s drug dealing and violence problems, Booker went on a 10-day hunger strike and lived in a tent near the drug dealing areas. He became known as an advocate of education reform and for proposing Council initiatives regarding City Hall transparency, where he was regularly outvoted 8-1.

But Booker was not discouraged. In fact, instead of running for re-election, he took his ambitions a step further and ran for the mayoral seat again longtime incumbent Sharpe James. During his campaign, his opponent’s supporters called Booker a carpetbagger and said he was “not black enough” to understand the city; Booker lost the election and instead finished out his Council term in 2002.

Following his loss, Booker began investing his time in establishing nonprofit organizations aimed to provide Newark residents with resources and services to better their communities, including Newark Now, and was making headlines. He ran for the mayoral seat again in 2006 and won. Booker’s tough campaign and promises to battle crime angered several Bloods gang leaders in four New Jersey state prisons: They plotted his assassination, which was then foiled by state investigators.

After Booker assumed office as mayor—the third consecutive black person to govern the city since 1970—he implemented a number of reforms in the city, including overhauling the police department and improving city services. Through what has been described as one of Newark’s largest property-tax increases in the city’s history, Booker’s administration approved a large budget and fixed the city’ structural financial deficit.

He reduced the crime rate significantly during his first term as mayor—even patrolling the streets himself until 4 a.m.—implemented pay cuts for top-earning city managers and directors and reduced his own salary by 8 percent. Additionally, as a result of Booker’s leadership, the city of Newark has raked in more than $100 million in private philanthropy.

As a member of the nonpartisan Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, Booker was honored in October 2009 by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and was among finalists for the 2010 World Mayor prize, where he placed seventh. He was a candidate for the prize in 2012.

Recognition in the Media

Booker was re-elected to his seat in May 2010, and made headlines again in December of that year after responding to a constituent’s Twitter request for his to send someone to shovel her elderly father’s driveway: Booker responded, saying, “I will do it myself; where does he live?” He and several other volunteers showed up and shoveled the man’s driveway. Earlier in 2010, Samepoint LLC released a study that measured the social media influence of mayors around the country and ranked Booker second most social mayor.

The Newark mayor made news again in April 2012, when he saved a woman from a house fire and, as a result, suffered second-degree burns on his hands and smoke inhalation. His actions earned Booker the nickname “super-mayor,” according to the Toronto Sun.

So known has Booker become for his unorthodox methods and dedication to the city and people of Newark, that The Week news magazine published an issue in April 2012 with the headline “Newark’s Cory Booker: America’s most overachieving mayor?”

He has made many appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show—including one with Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg, who donated $100 million to the city’s education fund—and has shown support for and spoken about his relationship with President Barack Obama.

Booker traveled with the Democratic National Convention in September 2012 and gave speeches before large crowds, eventually sparking speculation that he would someday run for president himself. Rumors also began circulating that he was considering running for the U.S. Senate, which proved to be true.

U.S. Senate

Booker officially announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey on June 8, 2013. The seat in the U.S. Senate opened after the death of Senator Frank Lautenberg. The Democratic primary began in August, with Booker campaigning against Representative Frank Pallone, Representative Rush Holt and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver. With a 40 point lead past the runner up Pallone, Booker won the primary election for the Democratic nomination in New Jersey on August 13, 2013. He won the Senate seat, beating out Republican Steve Lonegan, in a special election held on October 16, 2013.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in August 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Kofi Annan
Occupation: Civil Servant
Birth date: April 08, 1938 (Age: 75)
Education: University of Science and Technology, Macalester College, Institute for Advanced International Studies in Geneva, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Place of Birth: Kumasi, Ghana
Full name: Kofi Atta Annan
Zodiac sign: Aries

Best Known For

Kofi Annan is best known for his role as secretary-general of the United Nations.

Synopsis

Kofi Annan was born into an aristocratic family in Ghana on April 8, 1938. He attended a number of schools and colleges, studying international relations in the United States and Switzerland, and became an international civil servant working for the United Nations in 1962. He went on to become the U.N. secretary-general and later a special envoy to Syria.

Early Life

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Atta Annan was born within minutes of his twin sister, Efua Atta, on April 8, 1938, in Kumasi, Ghana. The grandchild and nephew of three tribal chiefs, Annan was raised in one of Ghana’s aristocratic families.

In his mid-teens, Annan attended an elite Methodist boarding school called Mfantsipim, where he learned that “suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere.” Upon Annan’s graduation from the school in 1957, Ghana gained independence from Britain; it was the first British African colony to do so. “It was an exciting period,” Annan once told The New York Times. “People of my generation, having seen the changes that took place in Ghana, grew up thinking all was possible.”

Annan went on to pursue higher education, attending four different colleges: Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota; Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland; and the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He earned a number of degrees, including a Master of Science, and studied international relations. Annan, whose native language is Akan, also became fluent in English, French, some Kru languages and other African languages.

Birth of a Career

Annan’s career with the United Nations began in 1962, when he got a job working as a budget officer for the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency. Annan has been an international civil servant ever since, with the exception of a short break from 1974 to 1976, when he worked as the director of tourism in Ghana.

For a nine-year period from 1987 to 1996, Annan was appointed to serve as an assistant secretary-general in three consecutive positions: Human Resources, Management and Security Coordinator; Program Planning, Budget and Finance, and Controller; and Peacekeeping Operations. While he served in that last capacity, the Rwandan genocide took place. Canadian ex-General Roméo Dallaire, who has been the force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, accused Annan of being overly passive in his responses to the 1994 genocide. Some 10 years after the genocide, in which more than 800,000 people were killed, Annan admitted that he “could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support,” according to a March 2004 BBC article.

Annan served as under-secretary-general from March 1994 to October 1995. He resumed the position in 1996 after a five-month appointment to serve as a special representative of the secretary-general to the former Yugoslavia.

United Nations Chief

The United Nations Security Council recommended Annan to replace the previous secretary-general, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, in later 1996. The General Assembly voted in his favor, and he began his first term as secretary-general on January 1, 1997.

Among Annan’s most well-known accomplishments were his issuance of a five-point Call to Action in April 2001 to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and his proposal to create a Global AIDS and Health Fund. He and the United Nations were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December of 2001 “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”

Annan is also known for his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and to Iran’s nuclear program. He told the BBC in September 2004 that the Iraq war did not conform to the U.N. charter and was illegal.

Life After the United Nations

Annan retired on December 31, 2006. Several months prior, he gave a farewell speech to world leaders at U.N. headquarters in New York, outlining major problems with an unjust world economy and widespread contempt for human rights.

“[W]e are not only all responsible for each other’s security,” Annan said in his speech. “We are also, in some measure, responsible for each other’s welfare. Global solidarity is both necessary and possible. It is necessary because without a measure of solidarity no society can be truly stable, and no one’s prosperity truly secure.”

Following his retirement, Annan returned to Ghana. He became involved with a number of organizations with a global focus. He was chosen to lead the formation of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, became a member of the Global Elders and was appointed president of the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva. In 2009, Annan joined a Columbia University program at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs.

In February 2012, Annan was appointed as the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria in an attempt to end the civil war taking place there. He developed a six-point plan for peace. He resigned from the position, citing intransigence of both the Syrian government and the rebels, as well as the Security Council’s failure to create a peaceful resolution.

“As an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council or the international community, for that matter,” Annan said in a resignation speech on August 2, 2012.

“I had expected to go into Ghanaian politics,” Annan once told Saga magazine, “retire to a farm at 60 and die in my bed at 80. It did not happen so. It’s one of the things God does.”

Singer Florence Welch

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in July 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Florence Welch
Occupation: Singer
Birth date: August 28, 1986 (Age: 27)
Education: Thomas’s London Day School, Alleyn’s School, Camberwell College of Arts
Place of birth: Camberwell, England, United Kingdom
AKA: Florence Welch
Full name: Florence Mary Leontine Welch
Zodiac sign: Virgo

Best Known For

Florence Welch is the lead singer of the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine. She can be heard on popular songs such as “Kiss with a Fist” and “Shake It Out.”

Synopsis

Born on August 28, 1986 in Camberwell, England, Florence Welch was raised in a family of writers and academics. She took to music at an early age and created her own band, which she named Florence and the Machine. The band met with success beginning in 2006, and became famous a few years later with their debut album, Lungs (2009). On the album, Welch’s voice can be heard on popular songs such as “Kiss with a Fist” and “Shake It Out.” In 2011, Florence and the Machine released its second studio album, Ceremonials.

Early Life

Born on August 28, 1986 in Camberwell, England, Florence Mary Leontine Welch, better known as Florence Welch, is the lead singer of the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine. Raised in a family of accomplished writers and academics, Welch received her education at the Camberwell College of Arts before dropping out to pursue a musical career.

Some of Welch’s talents came from her father, Nick, an advertising executive who was himself a musical performer in his 20s. Welch’s mother, Evelyn, a professor of renaissance studies and academic dean of arts at Queen Mary, University of London, also influenced her daughter, but in quite a different way. Welch said in an article in Q Magazine that a lecture of her mother’s impressed her and inspired her to aspire to make music with “some of the big themes—sex, death, love, violence—that will still be part of the human story in 200 years’ time.”

Commercial Success

Welch’s big break came in December 2006. Drunk at the Soho Revue Bar in London, Welch cornered host Mairead Nash—of the DJ duo Queens of Noize—in the bathroom and sang to her Etta James‘s “Something’s Got a Hold on Me.” A week later, the Queens of Noize invited Welch back to open for their club night.

“She belted it out, and I was thinking, ‘Oh … my … God,'” Nash told The Telegraph in a June 2009 article. “I had literally never heard anyone with such a powerful voice ever. I turned to [DJ partner Tabitha Denholm] and said, ‘I have to manage her.'”

Florence and the Machine initially consisted of Welch, her friend Isabella “Machine” Summers and a drum kit and ended up becoming a seven-piece band by 2009. In 2007, Welch recorded with the band Ashok, which released an album with the earliest version of her song “Happy Slappy”—later renamed “Kiss with a Fist”—and made a hit. Shortly after the release of the album, Welch resigned from Ashok.

After signing up with Nash, Florence Welch and the Machine rose to fame. The band released its debut album, Lungs, in the United Kingdom in July 2009 and met great success, peaking at No. 1 in the United Kingdom and at No. 2 in Ireland. When it was released for download in the United States several weeks later, the album debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Heatseekers Album chart.

“Kiss with a Fist,” released as the album’s lead single, was featured on a number of film and television series soundtracks. A number of the band’s other singles were also used as theme songs or featured in several American television shows, including Grey’s Anatomy and So You Think You Can Dance.

The band itself made an appearance in a 2011 episode of Gossip Girl.

An article in The Sunday Times of London called Welch the “most peculiar and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment: poetic, literate, hurricane-voiced, prime to climbing up lighting rigs on stage.” It went on to say that Welch is “a bamboozling concoction of cake-berserk 7-year-old child, mystical soothsayer and will-o’-the-wisp for whom life is a ‘constant acid trip.'”

Recent Events

In the midst of writing music for Florence and the Machine’s new album in early 2010, Welch was offered the chance to travel to Los Angeles to work with producers and writers of American pop music. Although she was tempted at first, Welch changes her mind, saying, “No. No. No. No. No! I can’t do that. This is too weird. I can’t just suddenly leave behind everything that made Lungs,” according to a September 2011 Billboard.com article.

Instead, the band made its second studio album Ceremonials, which included tracks by Summers, Paul Epworth, Kid Harpoon, James Ford and composer Eg White, and was released in October 2011. A video for album track “What the Water Gave Me” was released on iTunes as a buzz single and on the band’s VEVO channel on YouTube: It drew 1.5 million views in two days.

The band did a significant amount of touring while writing and recording for Ceremonials, which was released in 2011.

In January 2011, Welch worked with rapper Drake on material for his upcoming record, and in July 2012, suffered a vocal injury that caused her to cancel two European festival performances. According to a Reuters article published in The Vancouver Sun, Welch said, “It finally happened, I’ve lost my voice. Seriously, I felt something snap, it was very frightening.”

Congressman Barney Frank

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in July 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Barney Frank
Occupation: U.S. Representative
Birth date: March 31, 1940 (Age: 73)
Education: Harvard College, Harvard Law School
Place of birth: Bayonne, New Jersey
AKA: Barney Frank
Full name: Barnett Frank
Zodiac sign: Aries

Best Known For

Barney Frank is the first U.S. Congressman to voluntarily announce his homosexuality. He is also known for his work on the 2008 American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act.

Synopsis

Barney Frank was born on March 31, 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey. The Massachusetts Democrat became a U.S. Congressman in 1980, and publicly revealed his homosexuality in 1987. Frank worked at length on the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act, which was passed in 2008. He married his longtime boyfriend Jim Ready in July 2012.

Early Life

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a Democrat, is considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States, but he came from humble Jewish roots. He was born Barnett Frank in Bayonne, New Jersey on March 31, 1940, to Elsie and Samuel Frank. His father ran a Jersey City truck stop and was later jailed for one year for refusing to testify against his brother, who was involved in a kickback scheme. Despite the incident, Frank’s parents instilled in him and his three siblings “a belief in the power of the government to do good,” according to a January 2009 article in The New Yorker.

Frank graduated from Harvard College in 1962, and later pursued graduate studies there, working toward a Doctor of Philosophy degree in government and teaching undergraduate classes. He went on to become the chief assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White, and later worked for Massachusetts Congressman Michael Harrington. In 1972, Frank was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He served in that capacity for the following eight years, all the while attending Harvard Law School. Frank was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts in 1979.

During his time in state government, Frank taught part time at his alma mater and several other universities, including Boston University. He also published articles on public affairs and politics.

By the late 1970s, Frank had decided to pursue higher office. In 1980, he ran for and won the U.S. House of Representatives 4th Congressional District seat, which he continued to win every election thereafter. He announced in November 2011 that he would not seek re-election in 2012.

Coming Out

Frank began revealing his homosexuality to friends in his personal life before he ran for Congress, but concealed his sexual preference from the public until May 30, 1987. Frank, the first congressman to ever publicly announce his homosexuality, said that one of his reasons for doing so was that he did not want to end up like closeted bisexual Republican Connecticut Congressman Stewart McKinney: After McKinney’s death, on May 7, 1987, media speculation arose regarding whether or not he was gay. “I don’t want that to happen to me,” Frank told the Washington Post. According to Edge Boston magazine, another catalyst for Frank’s revelation was increased media interest in his private life after former Republican Maryland Congressman Bob Bauman was ousted from his seat following an arrest for soliciting an underage male prostitute.

Congressional Career

In his 32-year career as a member of the U.S. Congress, Frank proved himself to be an industrious and accomplished lawmaker.

He is well-known for his involvement in the House’s Financial Services Committee, and in mortgage foreclosure bailout issues.

Shortly after Frank announced his imminent departure from Congress, the Washington Post published an article exploring the congressman’s effect on the 2007 housing crisis. Its conclusion was stated in the article’s headline: “Barney Frank didn’t cause the housing crisis.”

Fannie Mae fought aggressively to minimize federal regulation of its activities and attempts to tax its profits. Among its tactics was giving “extravagant favors” to influential lawmakers, including Frank, who received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. But in 2005, Frank also attempted to help sponsor a bipartisan House bill to create an independent regulator for the corporations: it died in the Senate.

Following the subprime mortgage crisis, Frank supported the passage of the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act, which was created to protect homeowners from foreclosure. The law passed in 2008, and is now considered one of the most important and complex issues of Frank’s career.

Recent Events

Twenty-five years after he revealed to the nation that he was gay, a 72-year-old Frank married his longtime boyfriend, Jim Ready, who was 42 at the time. On the evening of Saturday, July 7, 2012, Frank and Ready exchanged vows at the Boston Marriott Newton in Boston, in a ceremony officiated by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Many political luminaries, including Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, attended the ceremony, but members of the news media were not permitted to attend. By exchanging vows in Massachusetts six months before the end of his congressional career, Frank “took another deliberate first step … [and will] spend the rest of his time in office as the nation’s first congressman in a same-sex marriage,” according to the Washington Post.

In an interview with a New York Magazine reporter in April 2012, Frank said that he wanted to get married while in office because he thinks “it’s important that [his] colleagues interact with a married gay man.” He also told the reporter why he decided to leave Congress at the end of his term. “I’ve been doing this since October of 1967, and I’ve seen too many people stay here beyond when they should,” Frank said. “I don’t have the energy that I used to have. I don’t like it anymore, I’m tired, and my nerves are frayed. And I dislike the negativism of the media. I think the media has gotten cynical and negative to a point where it’s unproductive.”

Actress Amy Adams

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in July 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Amy Adams
Occupation: Actress
Birth date: August 20, 1974 (Age: 39)
Education: Douglas County High School
Place of birth: Vicenza, Italy
AKA: Amy Adams
Full name: Amy Lou Adams
Zodiac sign: Leo

Best Known For

American actress Amy Adams has starred in the popular films Julie & Julia, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Enchanted and Junebug, among many others.

Synopsis

Amy Adams was born on August 20, 1974, in Vicenza, Italy, and her family relocated to the United States when she was about 8 years old. She pursued ballet training and dancing, as well as musical theater, and continued auditioning for television and film roles until she landed several that launched her into fame. Since then, Adams has starred in such popular films as Drop Dead Gorgeous, Enchanted, Junebug and Julie & Julia.

Early Life

Actress Amy Lou Adams was born on August 20, 1974, in Vicenza, Italy. She was the fourth of seven children born to Americans Kathryn and Richard Kent Adams, who was stationed at Caserma Ederle at the time of her birth. The Adams family, which was Mormon, relocated from one base to another repeatedly until it settled in Castle Rock, Colorado when Adams was about 8 years old.

Adams sang in the Douglas County High School choir and, aspiring to become a ballerina, trained as an apprentice at a local dance company. Later, she decided the rigidity of ballet training was ill-suited for her, and she began to pursue a career in musical theater instead.

Commercial Success

In the mid-1990s, Adams worked as a dancer at a number of different theatre and playhouses in Colorado and Minnesota. By the end of the decade, she had auditioned for and landed her first film role in the comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. Shortly thereafter, encouraged by co-star Kirstie Alley, Adams relocated to Los Angeles and auditioned for more roles. She landed one on a FOX television series, but it was later canceled.

Adams went on to appear in several small films and guest-star on TV series. She was also chosen to appear in Steven Spielberg‘s Catch Me If You Can (2002) as Brenda Strong—a role that, according to Spielberg, should have launched Adams’s career. But it wasn’t until she starred in the 2005 film Junebug that Adams made her breakthrough: She received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her role in the film, as well as a Special Jury Prize for her performance after Junebug premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

In 2007, Adams landed the lead part in the fantasy musical Enchanted. Two years later, she starred as a young, aspiring cook in the popular culinary comedy about famed chef Julia Child, Julie & Julia. She starred alongside Meryl Streep in the fllm, which was directed by the late film director Nora Ephron and received wide acclaim, earning nearly $130 million at the box office.

A March 2008 MSNBC article called Adams Hollywood’s new “It Girl,” adding that she’s still uncomfortable with all of her “It-ness.” The article quoted Adams as saying, “I always equated ‘It Girls’ to, like, having a certain type of sexuality. So, for me, I don’t think like that. I don’t associate that with myself at this time. I’ve been working, which is so grounding and you don’t sort of get a sense of the outside world when you’re working.”

Recent Activities

Adams continues to star in films and perform in live theater, such as Shakespeare in The Park. She married actor Darren Le Gallo in 2008, and gave birth to their daughter two years later.

Gymnast Gabby Douglas

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in July 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Gabby Douglas
Occupation: Gymnast
Birth date: December 31, 1995 (Age: 18)
Place of birth: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Nickname: Flying Squirrel
AKA: Gabby Douglas
Full name: Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas
Zodiac sign: Capricorn

Best Known For

Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas is best known as the first African American to win the individual all-around event. She also won a team gold medal for the U.S. at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Synopsis

Gabrielle Douglas was born on December 31, 1995, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Gabby Douglas began formal gymnastics training at 6 years old and won a state championship by the time she was 8. She moved away from her hometown and family in 2010 to pursue training with a world-renowned Olympic trainer, and was selected to compete with the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team at the 2012 Summer Olympics. There, Douglas became the first African American to win gold in the individual all-around event. She also won a team gold medal with teammates Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross, McKayla Maroney and Jordyn Wieber.

Early Life

American gymnast Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas, better known as Gabby Douglas or “Flying Squirrel,” was born on December 31, 1995, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Timothy Douglas and Natalie Hawkins. Her first experience with gymnastics came at the age of 3, when she perfected a straight cartwheel using a technique that she learned from her older sister, Arielle, a former gymnast. By age 4, Douglas had taught herself how to do a one-handed cartwheel.

Thanks to Arielle’s persuasion tactics, Douglas’s mother allowed her to begin taking formal gymnastics classes at the age of 6. Only two years later, in 2004, she was named a Virginia State Gymanstics Champion.

Gymnastic Achievements

When Douglas turned 14, she left her hometown and family, and moved to West Des Moines, Iowa, to train with renowned coach Liang Chow, known for molding American gymnast Shawn Johnson into a world champion and Olympic gold medalist. Travis and Missy Parton volunteered to be Douglas’s host family in West Des Moines: According to Douglas’s official website, she plays big sister to the Parton’s four daughters, one of whom is also a student of Chow’s.

At the 2010 Nastia Liukin SuperGirl Cup — a televised meet held in Massachusetts — Douglas made her debut on the national scene, placing fourth all-around. She also placed third on the balance beam, sixth on vault and ninth all-around in the junior division of her first elite meet, the 2010 CoverGirl classic in Chicago, Illinois. Douglas went on to win the silver medal on balance beam and fourth all-around at the 2010 U.S. Junior National Championships, and then took the uneven bars title at the 2010 Pan American Championships. Her performance at that event also placed Douglas at fifth all-around and won her a share of the U.S. team gold medal.

Douglas was a member of the U.S. team that won the gold medal in the team finals at the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo, Japan. She also won the 2012 Olympic Trials, which took place in San Jose, California, and was selected to the national team that will represent the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England.

“Her unique blend of power, flexibility, body alignment and form has led her to be compared with three-time Olympian Dominique Dawes,” states an article on American-Gymnast.com. Douglas is the first African American to make the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team since Dawes in 2000. She aims to be the second African American woman to win an individual medal, according to a June 2012 Los Angeles Times article.

The American-Gymnast.com article reported that Douglas’s high-flying skills and high difficulty score on bars liken her to Dawes and enticed her to U.S. women’s national team coordinator Martha Karoyli, who nicknamed her “Flying Squirrel.”

By 2012, 16-year-old Douglas had proven herself a champion, going from underdog to Olympian in a short time. She became the subject of significant media attention in the summer of 2012: She was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in early July of 2012, along with the rest of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team, and on one of five covers released by TIME Magazine that same month.

2012 Olympics

At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, Douglas and other members of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team — Kyla Ross, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber — took home a team gold medal. Fans worldwide watched as judges announced the team’s medal win — the first gold medal for the American women’s gymnastics team since 1996.

Douglas went on to compete in the individual all-around event, and became the first African American to win gold in the prestigious event. Following her two golds, she competed in the individual uneven bars and individual beam events, but failed to medal in either, placing eight and seventh, respectively.

Director Ridley Scott

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in August 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Ridley Scott
Occupation: Director, Producer
Birth date: November 30, 1937 (Age: 76)
Education: West Hartlepool College of Art, Royal College of Art in London
Place of birth: South Shields, Durham [now Tyne and Wear], England
Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

Best Known For

Ridley Scott is an English director and producer, whose notable hits include Thelma and Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. He is also recognized as the older brother of director Tony Scott, who committed suicide in August 2012.

Synopsis

Film director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937, in South Shields, Durham, England. He began pursuing his interest in film while in college and went on to work for the BBC, before founding his own commercial production company, Ridley Scott Associates. He brought his younger brother, Tony Scott, also a director, on to work with him at RSA. Ridley Scott went on to direct many successful films, including Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, Alien and Blade Runner. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Thelma and Louise (1991), and was again nominated for both Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001). Other notable films include Matchstick Men (2003), American Gangster (2007) and Robin Hood (2010).

Early Life

English film director and producer Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, England, to Elizabeth and Col. Francis Percy Scott. He had two brothers, one of whom was Tony Scott, who later also became a film director and committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in Los Angeles on August 19, 2012.

Ridley loved watching films as a child, and by the time he reached college, he was actively pursuing a film career. He helped establish the film department at the Royal College of Art, and as his final project there, he made a short film called Boy and Bicycle. He cast his brother, Tony, in the film, which was his directorial debut. After college, Ridley Scott went on to work as a trainee set designer for the BBC, which led to work on a number of popular television series at that time.

Film Career

In the late 1960s, Scott founded Ridley Scott Associates, a film and commercial production company, and brought Tony on to work with him. The company garnered attention for the Scott brothers, along with other commercial directors, including Alan Parker and Hugh Hudson. Still, Scott continued to pursue a career in film directing. He finally landed a job directing the 1977 film The Duellists, which was nominated for the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and won an award for best film.

Scott then went on to direct the movies Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver, and Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford. Blade Runner failed at the box office in 1982, but later became regarded as a classic. In 1986, Scott’s brother, Tony, released his first blockbuster, beating Scott to the punch. But Scott quickly caught up in 1991, with the film Thelma & Louise, starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. The film was one of Scott’s biggest critical successes, and it helped revive his reputation and receive his first Academy Award nomination for best director.

Along with brother Tony Scott, in 1995, Scott founded and operated Scott Free Productions and worked on numerous commercials and television shows, in addition to his feature films. The film Gladiator, released in 2000 and starring Russell Crowe, became another huge commercial success for the director. Gladiator won five Academy Awards, including for best picture and best actor, and Scott received an Academy Award nomination (for best director) for his work on the film.

Scott would go on to work with Crowe on four other films.

Following Gladiator‘s success, Scott directed Black Hawk Down, which starred Ewan McGregor and Josh Hartnett, and Hannibal, starring Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore and Ray Liotta. Many films that followed became some of Scott’s more well-known successes, including American Gangster, which starred Denzel Washington, who worked with Tony Scott on five different films; Body of Lies, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio; and Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe.

In Recent Years

In 2010, Scott worked on what was initially going to be a two-part sequel to Alien, but it ended up being a single film called Prometheus, which was released in June 2012. He also directed a commercial for Lady Gaga’s new perfume.

Scott, who was twice married and has three children—all of whom are involved in the film business—continues to direct, and has several project in the works. He was knighted in the United Kingdom’s 2003 New Year Honours.

Scott’s brother, Tony Scott, died on August 19, 2012, after jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles, California. A suicide note was found at Tony Scott’s office shortly after his death.

Musician Ronald “Ronnie” Wood

February 21, 2014 By Lee

By Lee Landor

[Note: This biography was originally published on A&E Television Networks’ Biography.com site in July 2012.]

Quick Facts

Name: Ron Wood
Occupation: Bassist, Songwriter, Guitarist
Birth date: June 01, 1947 (Age: 66)
Education: Ealing College of Art, London
Place of birth: Hillingdon, London, United Kingdom
AKA: Ron Wood, Ronnie Wood, New Kid
Full name: Ronald David Wood
Zodiac sign: Gemini

Best Known For

English rocker Ron Wood became the Rolling Stones’ guitarist in the mid-1970s, and is now a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

Synopsis

Ron Wood was born on June 1, 1947 in Hillingdon, London. He joined a number of English bands as a guitarist and bassist — most notably Faces and The Rollingstones — and produced many hits during his career. Wood also produced solo albums and, as a gifted painter, held art exhibits throughout the United States and elsewhere. For his musical talents, Wood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

Early Life

Ronald David Wood, better known as Ron Wood, celebrated three milestones in 2012—his second induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his 65th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones, which Wood joined in 1975. The British rocker’s achievements have brought him a long way away from his humble roots. Born in Hillingdon, London, on June 1, 1947, Wood was the youngest of three boys raised in what has been referred to as a “family of gypsies.”

Wood started out as an artist, first displaying a talent for painting when he was 3 years old, but his interest in art piqued when he was an undergraduate at the Ealing School of Art in London. Wood’s love of art was not unrivaled, though: He had an affinity for creating music. At 17, he began his musical career with The Birds, a rhythm and blues band that was popular in the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s.

Commercial Success

After The Birds disbanded in 1967, Wood joined The Jeff Beck Group as a bassist, along with vocalist Rod Stewart. He toured with the Beck band on several occasions and released two albums with them before parting ways. After Wood was fired from The Jeff Beck Group in 1969 (despite being rehired only weeks later), he and Stewart went on to join another English rock band, Faces (initially called “the Small Faces”). With their two newest members, Faces met with major success, regularly touring the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. The band was among the top-grossing live acts from 1970 to 1975.

According to an article published in Phonograph Record Magazine in June 1975, “Wood’s career really began when he was fired from the Beck band, and unleashed a distinctive slide guitar on the first cut of Rod Stewart’s first solo album.”

During his final year with Faces, 1975, Wood began working with the Rolling Stones. Two years earlier, he had collaborated with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who contributed to his first solo album, I’ve Got My Own Album To Do. In 1974, Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor departed, and several months later, Wood was brought in to participate in recording sessions for the group’s upcoming album, Black and Blue. He also toured North America with the group. Faces disbanded in December 1975, and in February 1976, Wood became an official Rolling Stone.

Throughout his musical career, Wood released more than a dozen solo albums and was credited as a co-writer for more than a dozen songs, including Stay With Me for Faces, and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It) for the Stones. In September 2010, when his latest album, I Feel Like Playing, was released, Wood spoke to Vanity Fair about the impetus for making solo albums.

“Apart from keeping my chops intact between tours, I get to be the boss,” he said. “When it’s with the Stones, I’m working as a unit … But when it comes to a solo outing, the world is your oyster—provided that you have the material.”

Although he was successful in his solo endeavors, it was for his membership in the Stones that Wood was first inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with his bandmates in 1989. Wood was inducted a second time on April 14, 2012, along with members of Faces. Wood is one of only 18 people to have been inducted more than once.

Personal Life

Wood was married twice, first to Krissy Findlay, and then to Jo Karslake. He has three biological children: son Jesse with Findlay; and daughter Leah and son Tyrone with Karslake. Wood also raised Jamie, Karslake’s son from a previous relationship. During his marriage to Findlay, Wood had an affair with Pattie Boyd, who was married to Beatle George Harrison at the time.

In July 2008, Wood ran off with an 18-year-old Russian cocktail waitress, Ekaterina Ivanova; the pair met at an escort bar at 4 a.m., when Wood was “boozed out of his mind,” according to a Daily Mail article. Wood’s affair with the young woman made headlines. In a statement to the Daily Mail, Wood’s publicist spoke about the relationship: “She is a drinking partner. When you’re an alcoholic and your family are all telling you to stop drinking, you simply find someone else to drink with … He’s fallen off the wagon big time.”

The ITN News Agency reported in 2008 that Wood had checked into rehab for his alcoholism seven times. Karslake divorced Wood in November 2009, despite the end of his affair with Ivanova.

In Recent Years

By 2012, Wood had his own show on Absolute Radio, and was nominated at the 2012 Sony Awards as the Music Radio Personality of the Year—an award he also won in 2011. He was also displaying his art at various exhibits, including one named “Faces, Time and Places,” which opened in New York City in April 2012, and ran for three months.

Other major events Wood celebrated in 2012 were his 65th birthday and the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary, which he likened to “training for something big,” according to The Associated Press. “It’s like working out for the Olympics of something,” he was quoted as saying. “You’ve got to go into training. So we’re going to go into training.”

Whether he performs solo or with the Stones, Wood makes waves. “Is there a more quintessential wrinkled old rocker than the 64-year-old Ronald David Wood?” So begins an article about the rocker published in February 2012, on The Independent Newspaper‘s website. The article also calls Wood “rock’s greatest survivor.”

On Wood’s 65th birthday (June 1) in 2012, the Toronto Sun published an article on its website that praised the rocker and his effect on rock ‘n’ roll. “His iconic shock of black hair and hell-raising lifestyle set the benchmark for rock ‘n’ roll wannabes,” read the article, “and continues to be an influence on budding musicians for generations to come.”