The Phoenix kid who learned to swing She came out of Phoenix in 1987, the kind of town that teaches you early about mirages. Heat shimmering off parking lots, strip-mall neon, the whole place daring you to make your own weather. Her mom ran a little boutique called Frances, her dad kept things steady, and … Read More “Aidy Bryant — hurricane-laugh in a cardigan.” »
Florence Brunet, later billed as Fritzi Brunette, was born May 27, 1890, and even that simple fact comes with a little fog. Savannah, Georgia, maybe. Boston, maybe. The old records wobble the way old records do, like everybody was half-making it up as they went. She might’ve been Florence Simone before she was Florence Brunet. … Read More “Fritzi Brunette — a spark from the nickelodeon years, the kind of woman who learned early how fast a spotlight can go cold.” »
She came into the world as Helen Virginia Briggs on September 29, 1910, up in Minneapolis where the air bites your face and people don’t pretend weather is a suggestion. Her folks, Earil and Margaret, hauled her west to Fargo when she was still small enough to be carried in one arm and a diaper … Read More “Virginia Bruce — satin-voiced spark in a town that chewed up satin and kept the teeth” »
She was born February 17, 1860, in Columbus, Indiana, the youngest of three kids in a country that still smelled like woodsmoke and horses. Newton and Matilda Bryant gave her a plain American beginning, the kind that doesn’t hint at fame, only at survival. There are places where you’re raised on comfort and there are … Read More “Kate Bruce Bryant — the iron-spined mother of early cinema, a woman who turned wagon dust into screen light.” »
She came out of Reno, Nevada, on April 20, 1921, rich-girl roots, clean air, and a name that already sounded like a marquee. Josephine Ruth Clarke was the birth certificate version, the one you’d find in a cedar drawer under old lace and church programs. “Reno Browne” was the version that walked into a B-western … Read More “Reno Browne — saddle-leather starlet with a pilot’s nerves and a rodeo queen’s grin” »
She was born June 29, 1957, in New York City, into a house where bodies spoke before mouths did. Her parents were dancers — Isabel Mirrow and Kelly Kingman Brown — the kind of people who understand the world in counts of eight, who know what a tendon can say when it’s pushed past polite. … Read More “Leslie Browne — the ballerina who slipped into Hollywood once, then went back to the barre like it was church and barroom both.” »
New York made her and New York swallowed her, the same way it does with anybody who dares to sing like they mean it. She was born there on August 1, 1924, and she died there on May 6, 1989, sixty-four years between two hard brackets of asphalt and neon. The papers call her a … Read More “Tally Brown — a blues-scarred torch in a city that never learned to sleep” »
She was born November 16, 1984, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which isn’t exactly Hollywood, but it’s the kind of place where a kid can still think the world is bigger than the streetlights. The thing about Kimberly Brown is that she started living in front of cameras before most of us learn to swallow our own … Read More “Kimberly J. Brown — the kid who learned early that magic is mostly timing, guts, and not flinching” »
Elizabeth Teresa “Terry” Burnham (August 8, 1949 – October 7, 2013) belonged to that small, poignant class of performers who become familiar to millions before they’re old enough to understand what fame is. A Los Angeles native, Burnham worked steadily through the late 1950s and 1960s as a child actress, appearing in a long list … Read More “Terry Burnham — luminous child actress of TV.” »
Marylouise Burke, born in 1940 or 1941 in Steelton, Pennsylvania, is one of those actors whose face you may not place instantly but whose presence you always feel. She has built a long, quietly formidable career across stage, film, and television by specializing in people who seem ordinary right up until the moment they aren’t. … Read More “Marylouise Burke — sly, sharp character-actor force” »
