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Joe Coleman (painter)
Joseph Coleman (born November 22, 1955) is an American painter, illustrator actor and performance artist. He has been described as the "walking ghost of Old America" by his wife, photographer Whitney Ward, for his over-riding interest in the historical arcana and personae that often populate his paintings. Of Coleman's work, the New York Times wrote that, “If P. T. Barnum had hired Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Breughel or Hieronymous Bosch, Bosch to paint sideshow banners, they might have resembled the art of Joe Coleman.” While Berlin's ''Der Tagesspiegel, Tagesspiegel'' said of Coleman, "Like George Grosz, [George] Grosz in the 1920s, he holds a drastic mirror up to his own times." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston Corbett
Thomas H. "Boston" Corbett (January 29, 1832 – presumed dead September 1, 1894) was an American Union Army soldier who shot and killed U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Corbett was initially arrested for disobeying orders, but was later released on the orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who referred to Corbett as "the patriot" upon dismissing him. He was largely considered a hero by the media and the public. Known for his devout religious beliefs and eccentric behavior, Corbett drifted around the United States before disappearing ''circa'' 1888. Circumstantial evidence suggests that he died in the Great Hinckley Fire in September 1894, but that remains impossible to substantiate. Early life and education Corbett was born in London and immigrated with his family to New York City in 1840. The Corbetts moved frequently before eventually settling in Troy, New York. As a young man, Corbett began apprenticing as a milliner (also called a "ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Merrick
Joseph Carey Merrick (5 August 1862 – 11 April 1890), often erroneously called John Merrick, was an English man known for having severe deformities. He was first exhibited at a freak show under the stage name "the Elephant Man" and then went to live at the London Hospital after he met Sir Frederick Treves, subsequently becoming well known in London society. Merrick was born in Leicester and began to develop abnormally before the age of five. His mother died when he was eleven and his father soon remarried. Rejected by his father and stepmother, he left home and went to live with his uncle Charles Merrick. In 1879, 17-year-old Merrick entered the Leicester Union Workhouse. In 1884, he contacted a showman named Sam Torr and proposed that Torr should exhibit him. Torr arranged for a group of men to manage Merrick, whom they named "the Elephant Man". After touring the East Midlands, Merrick travelled to London to be exhibited in a penny gaff shop rented by showman Tom Norman. N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Eck
John Eckhardt Jr, (August 27, 1911 – January 5, 1991), professionally billed as Johnny Eck, was an American freak show performer in sideshows and a film actor. Born with sacral agenesis, Eck is best known today for his role in Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic film ''Freaks'' and his appearances as a bird creature in several Tarzan films. He was often billed as "The Amazing Half-Boy", "King of the Freaks" and "The Most Remarkable Man Alive". Besides being a sideshow performer and actor, the multi-talented Eck was also an artist, musician, photographer, illusionist, penny arcade owner, Punch and Judy operator, and expert model-maker. Early life John Eckhardt Jr. was born on August 27, 1911, to Emilia (born 1876) and John Eckhardt, Sr. (born 1874) in Baltimore, Maryland, as a fraternal twin. His brother Robert Eckhardt was also a performer and he had an older sister named Caroline Laura Eckhardt. Eck was born with a truncated torso due to sacral agenesis. Though Eck would some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet (; born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as The Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock music, rock, and avant-garde music, avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdism, absurdist wordplay, a loud, gravelly voice, and his claimed wide vocal range, though reports of it have varied from three octaves to seven and a half. Known for his enigmatic persona, Beefheart frequently constructed myths about his life and was known to exercise an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians. Although he achieved little commercial success, he sustained a cult following as an incalculable influence on an array of avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental rock artists. A child prodigy, prodi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hank Williams
Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he recorded 55 singles (five released posthumously) that reached the top 10 of the ''Billboard'' Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 12 that reached No. 1 (three posthumously). Born and raised in Alabama, Williams was given guitar lessons by African-American blues musician Rufus Payne in exchange for meals or money. Payne, along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb, had a major influence on Williams' later musical style. Williams began his music career in Montgomery in 1937, when producers at local radio station WSFA hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. When several of his band members wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hasil Adkins
Hasil Adkins (April 29, 1937 – April 26, 2005) was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His genres include rock and roll, country, blues and more commonly rockabilly, and because of his unusual playing and singing style, he is often cited as an example of outsider music. He generally performed as a one-man band, playing guitar and drums at the same time. Adkins was born during the Great Depression and grew up in poverty. His spirited, unusual lifestyle is reflected in his music. His songs, which he began recording and distributing locally in the mid-1950s, explored an affinity for chicken, sexual intercourse, and decapitation, and were obscure outside of West Virginia until the 1980s. The newfound popularity secured him a cult following, spawned the Norton Records label, and helped usher in the genre known as psychobilly. Personal life Adkins was born in Boone County, West Virginia on April 29, 1937, where he spent his entire life. He was the youngest of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Fish
Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer, Rape, rapist, child molestation, child molester, and cannibalism, cannibal who committed at least three child murders from July 1924 to June 1928. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and The Boogey Man. Fish was a suspect in at least five murders during his lifetime. He confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide, and he confessed to stabbing at least two other people. Fish once boasted that he "had children in every state", and at one time stated his number of victims was about 100. However, it is not known whether he was referring to rapes or cannibalization, nor is it known if the statement was truthful. Fish was apprehended on December 13, 1934, and put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd. He was convicted and executed by electric chair on January 16, 1936, at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Bell
Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, as a juvenile, murdered two preschool-age boys in Benwell and Scotswood, Scotswood, an inner suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1968. Bell committed her first murder when she was 10 years old. In both instances, Bell informed her victim he had a sore throat, which she would massage before proceeding to Strangling, strangle him. Bell was convicted of both murders in December 1968, in a trial held at Moot Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle Assizes when she was 11 years old, and in which her actions were judged to have been committed under Diminished responsibility in English law, diminished responsibility. Her accomplice in at least one of the murders, 13-year-old Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), was Acquittal, acquitted of all charges. She remains Britain's youngest female killer, though not the youngest female murderer, having been diagnosed with a Psychopathy, psychopathic personality disorder prior to her trial and co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Gein
Edward Theodore Gein (; August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984), also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan, in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden, in 1957. Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. By 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of the murder of Worden, but he was found legally insane and was remanded to a psychiatric institution. He died at Mendota Mental Health Institute from respiratory failure, on July 26, 1984, aged 77. He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and ''Playboy'' Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Mansfield was known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe Award. Mansfield enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play ''Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?'' (1955–1956), which she reprised in the film adaptation of the same name (1957). Her other film roles include the musical comedy ''The Girl Can't Help It'' (1956), the drama ''The Wayward Bus'' (1957), the neo-noir '' Too Hot to Handle'' (1960), and the sex comedy ''Promises! Promises!'' (1963); the latter established Mansfield as the first major American actress to perform in a nude scene in a post-silen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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