Compact Biographies

In the fifth episode of season 8 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of the first man to step foot on the surface of the moon - Neil Armstrong.

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In the fourth episode of season 8 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of a pioneering female aviator who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and whose disappearance remains a mystery to this day - Amelia Earhart.

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In the third episode of season 8 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of the man who Buster Keaton called "the funniest" - Stan Laurel.

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In the second episode of season 8 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of the man who made it possible for blind people to read and write - Louis Braille.

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“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” – J Robert Oppenheimer.

There are many examples of people from history

who are immensely famous in their field but who are not necessarily that well

known otherwise. J Robert Oppenheimer is one of those figures. If you have an interest

in physics or the history of the Second World War, then you will likely have

heard of him, but otherwise, you may not. It is also true that the significance

of the contributions a person made during their lifetime may be diluted with

time and so although he may not be a household name today, there was a time

when J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most famous scientific minds on the

planet and whose achievements shaped 20th-century physics and beyond.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York

City on 22 April 1904. His parents were Jewish and had emigrated to the United

States from Germany in the late 1880s. Oppenheimer had an enduring love of learning

throughout his childhood. He had a voracious appetite for knowledge and advanced

so quickly through his classes that he finished his third and fourth grades in

the same year. He also skipped most of the 8th grade.

He was accepted by Harvard at the age of 18

and although his favourite study subject was chemistry, Harvard at the time

required its students to have a broader repertoire of knowledge which included

philosophy, mathematics, literature, and history. J Robert Oppenheimer was

nothing if not brilliant and by taking six courses a term he managed to catch

up very quickly in the fields where he was considered weaker.  By his first year, he was accepted to

graduate standing in physics due to the extra personal study he had been doing.

This meant that he would not be required to take the entry-level classes in

physics and was able to take the advanced level ones instead, effectively

allowing him to skip ahead.

It was not long before he discovered his true passion, which was theoretical physics, gaining significant note and accolades along the way. He even assisted a Nobel prize-winning physicist during the 1930s. By 1936 he was a full professor at Berkeley although his theoretical research continued to keep him quite busy as well. During his time at Berkeley, the FBI under J Edgar Hoover started to take an interest in J Robert Oppenheimer as he was showing some communist tendencies. He had close friends and family who were either active in the communist party or who had previously been members, including his wife Kitty, his lover Jean Tatlock and his brother Frank.

His genius did not go overlooked though, and with

war escalating in Europe, the United States became concerned that it would

eventually be drawn fully into the conflict. Consequently, even before the

attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the event which drew

the USA into an all-out war, President Franklin D Roosevelt had approved an

idea to harness the power of the atom and to as quickly as possible, develop

the atomic bomb. By the middle of 1942, J Robert Oppenheimer had been selected

to help lead the team that would eventually do so. Due to the security

clearance required to lead such a team, the FBI’s interest also grew and

Oppenheimer’s home was bugged as he was put under close surveillance.

Oppenheimer and others began considering

possible site locations for nuclear testing and Oppenheimer felt that an area

known as Los Alamos Ranch School outside of Santa Fe in New Mexico might fit

the bill. Oppenheimer had fallen in love with the southwester...

“If you drink don’t drive. Don’t even putt” – Dean Martin.

Few individuals need less of an introduction

than Dean Martin. He was known as the “king of cool” due to his charismatic

nature and is one of the most iconic comedians, actors, and singers of the 20th

century.

Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on 7

June 1917 in Jefferson County, Ohio. His parents were Italian immigrants and so

Dean didn’t even start learning to speak English until the age of five and

because of the language barrier, he was often bullied in his younger years. As

a teenager, he began to develop a love of music and took up playing the drums.

Like many young people, Dean had a bit of a rebellious streak and chose to drop

out of high school because he thought he was more intelligent than his

teachers. After dropping out, he picked up all sorts of different jobs working variously

as a blackjack dealer, a steel mill worker, and even a welterweight boxer and bootlegger

during the prohibition years.

By late 1941, Dean Martin had met and married Elizabeth McDonald and the couple had four children, Craig, Claudia, Gail, and Deana. However, the marriage was an unhappy one and ended in divorce in 1949 with Dean gaining custody of the children. During this period, he was a member of several different bands but succeeded almost entirely on his personality and looks. However, he eventually managed to develop his own singing style that began to attract some attention to his vocal skills as well.

He married again as soon as his divorce from

Elizabeth came through, marrying a former Orange Bowl queen from Florida called

Dorothy Jean Biegger. Their marriage was much more successful and lasted 24

years producing a further three children for Dean. The first of these was also

named Dean and was born on 17 November 1951. The second was Ricci born in 1953

and then Gina born in 1956. He did marry for a third time but that marriage, to

Catherine Hawn only lasted three years and produced no children although Dean did

adopt Catherine’s daughter Sasha.

Whilst working in New York, Dean Martin met the

comedian Jerry Lewis who, although famous now, was, like Dean, a nobody back in

the 40s, and the two of them performed together at Atlantic City’s 500

Club.  The only problem was that their

act was very poorly received, so much so that the owner told them that if their

next performance was no better, then they were both fired. With the hindsight

of history, we can now smile knowing how successful these two became; however,

the two of them were desperate to improve their act and so they began

formulating a plan in the back alley behind the club and the two of them agreed

that if they were going to go out, then they were going to go out with a bang

and so they decided to go for broke.

The plan meant that they would turn their show

into a variety performance with different sections which included some ad-libbed

comedic jokes and skits as well as music. This would serve as a template for Dean

Martin’s comedic career that was to blossom in later years.

After many successful years with Jerry Lewis,

Dean Martin desired creative changes that ultimately led to his partnership with

Lewis coming to an end. He decided to try his hand at acting and so turned his

attention towards Hollywood. His first solo film, Ten-Thousand Bedrooms in 1957

failed miserably at the box office. He was by now a well-known singer who was

also known for slapstick comedy but rock ‘n’ roll was taking over the music

“If you can dream it, you can do it” – Walt Disney.

There is no name better known in the film

industry than that of Walt Disney. An American film icon, the very name Disney

continues to carry weight decades after the death of its namesake. However, few

people know how Walt Disney became successful and know less of his early life.

Walter Elias Disney was born on 5 December 1901.

Born into a large family, Walt had a passion for art and drawing even as a

child and although art would be his longtime passion, his early life was filled

with a more aimless wandering. Moving to Chicago in 1917, Walt Disney attempted

to join the United States Army in order to fight in World War I but he was

rejected due to him not being of legal age to sign up. He decided the following

year to lie about his age and managed to join the American Red Cross arriving

in France in November 1918 just after the armistice had already been signed.

Many of Walt Disney’s early cartoons,

especially those in his school newspaper, were very patriotic with him creating

drawings and artwork on the subject of World War I, and a lifelong love of

country was something that Walt Disney would be known for in the decades to

come.

Overshadowed by the extraordinary success he

would go on to have, few people remember that the first company Walt Disney

started actually failed.  The company,

Laugh O-gram Studio, was bankrupt by 1923 and true success for Walt Disney was

still some years away.

On 13 July 1925, Walt Disney married Lillian Bounds

in Idaho who had been an ink artist in the Disney studio. The couple went on to

have two daughters, Diane who was born in 1933 and Sharon who was born in 1936.

In the 1990s Lillian said that Walt was a wonderful father and grandfather and had

been a wonderful husband to her.

It wasn’t until May of 1928 that Disney’s signature

character, Mickey Mouse, was finally developed and the beginnings of the

brilliance of what would become the Walt Disney Company slowly began to emerge

and take shape.

The exact origins of Mickey Mouse are somewhat

unclear.  Some theories suggest that the

character may have been inspired by a pet mouse that Walt Disney used to keep some

years previously. Despite its uncertain origins, it was the third attempt at

using this character when it was synchronized to music in the short clip Steamboat

Willie that not only marked a landmark moment for Disney but also for animation

in general as this was the first post-produced sound cartoon.

Throughout the late 1920s, Walt Disney sought

professional composers and music writers who would be able to turn animations

into a device through which music could be expressed.  He had his heart set on having music and

animation combined to assist in telling stories. This is one of the primary

reasons why so many of the early cartoons are musicals.

The best was yet to come though, and by the

middle of 1934 Walt Disney was interested in pursuing new ideas and this is

when his young studio began the creation of a feature-length animated film – Snow

White and the Seven Dwarves. This production took four years and came at a cost

of $1.5 million. As a full-length colour and sound cartoon, it went

significantly over budget and individuals throughout the industry believed this

would utterly bankrupt the company, many even calling the film project Disney’s

folly. However, as history knows,

“Because something or someone looks or acts differently from us does not necessarily mean that it is ugly or bad” – Gene Roddenberry.

Gene Roddenberry was the genius behind the groundbreaking television series Star Trek.  But there was so much more to Roddenberry’s life – he was a military aviator, worked for the police department, and was a scriptwriter.

Gene Roddenberry was born on 19 August 1921

in his family home in the west Texas town of El Paso.  His family would move to Los Angeles two

years later when his father became a police officer there.   He loved reading pulp fiction as a child with

titles such as John Carter of Mars and Tarzan having a great influence on him

and his future Hollywood writing career.

Though he would study police science at Los

Angeles City College, which incidentally was where he met and started dating

Eileen-Anita Rexroat his passion was for flying. He joined the Army Air Force in

1941 shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and he flew 89 combat

missions during World War II, mostly in the four-engine bomber, the B-17 Flying

Fortress for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had been

the pilot of a B-17 that overshot the runway in 1943 and crashed into trees, killing

two of the crew, but he was absolved of all blame. He was also involved in a crash

as a passenger and subsequently flew all over the world helping with air crash

investigations.

In 1942, Gene Roddenberry and Eileen were

married and they would go on to have two children together, Darleen Anita and

Dawn Allison.

After the war, Roddenberry would go on to fly commercial aircraft for Pan Am on some of their long-haul routes.  He had another flying accident as the flight officer, and despite having two broken ribs himself, he was able to help some of the passengers escape the wreckage. 

Upon retiring from flying in 1948, Gene Roddenberry joined the LA Police Department and also started to take an interest in writing.  He first worked in the police traffic department and was able to use his writing skills in the newspaper division that would later become the Public Information Division.  He also became the speechwriter for the Chief of Police. Around this time, he also started to show an interest in writing for the new media of television.

Roddenberry served as the technical advisor

on a television program called Mr. District Attorney under the pen name Robert

Wesley. He also wrote scripts for some major series like Have Gun, Will Travel,

Dragnet, and Highway Patrol. However, it became difficult to balance both

careers, so in 1956 he resigned from the LAPD in order to focus full-time on his

television writing career.

In 1964 Gene Roddenberry created the series

Star Trek and worked hard to get it picked up for TV. It debuted in September

1966 on NBC and though the original series only ran for three seasons, it went

on to spawn six spinoffs in later decades along with a dozen feature films.

Star Trek struggled constantly during its initial run with the threat of cancelation always hanging over its head. It was saved by the fans who created fan clubs and kept it going for 79 episodes. This initial run became known as Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short.   Star Trek was revolutionary in a number of ways. For example, it boasted the most diverse cast on television at the time and it was also set in a universe that showed that people could get along with each other, quite an optimistic outlook which was a stark contrast to the evening ...

“Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.” – Irving Berlin

Born Israel Isidore Baline, Irving Berlin was a man born into a world of discrimination, hatred, and incredible poverty. However, from these ashes, Irving Berlin would rise like a phoenix in a new country to become perhaps the greatest American musician of all time. His work influenced generations of people and continues its powerful march through history today as well.

Irving Berlin was born in Russia in on 11 May 1888 to a Jewish family. During this period under the Czars, Jews faced extremely harsh and discriminatory treatment. Treated as subpar and not even granted the basic rights of citizens, the Jewish population in Irving’s community were extremely poor, including his own family. Although Irving Berlin almost never talked about his early poverty-stricken days in Russia, one of his earliest memories, as recorded by his biographer, was the memory of his own home burning to the ground in the night.

His father’s role as a Jewish cantor exposed Irving Berlin to music at a young age and this would become his passion in life with a career spanning over 60 years.

Berlin’s fortunes took a massive shift, though, when his family emigrated during one of the Jewish crackdowns in Russia to the United States, the country that would be his home for the rest of his life. His family came to the United States when Irving was a young child – just 5 years old – and like so many other immigrants, went through the Ellis Island immigration port before entering the city of New York.

For a man whose contribution to music cannot be understated, Irving Berlin did not even publish his first song until the age of 19 in 1907. That very first song was called “Marie from Sunny Italy”. Berlin sold the rights to the song for a mere $0.33.

Although only a small amount that was fairly inconsequential even back then, that represented the first musical success of Irving Berlin but it would by no means be his last as by the year 1911, a mere four years later, he had achieved international recognition with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. This major hit would propel Berlin to major stardom and before long he also owned the “Musical Box Theatre” which was on Broadway.

His group Alexander’s Ragtime Band spawned a furious dance craze all over the United States and around the world. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and the dancing that went with it went as far afield as Irving’s homeland of Russia.

As time went on, Irving Berlin focused more and more on his American audience, creating simple pieces of music with simple direct lyrics which he described the purpose as, “to reach the heart of the average American”. This passion and desire to create music which was distinctively American, for Americans, and that everyone could enjoy, would truly be the defining feature of Irving Berlin’s career.

Not only did he produce many songs and pieces of music, but he also would take on full Broadway musicals as well including “This is the Army” starring a young Ronald Reagan. However, it was not the use of the president-to-be that made this particular play famous but rather it was Kate Smith singing Berlin’s version of “God Bless America” which would be one of his greatest and most lasting legacies. Little could Irving Berlin have imagined that his piece of music composed in 1938 would once more reach the top charts in the United States shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. His music continues to resonate with the soul of America long after his passing.

Many other pieces of music written by him have also found their way into contemporary American culture and have found themselves rooted in the happy memories of holidays and important events such as the songs “Anthems for Easter Parade”, “Happy Holiday”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”,

“Being a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to me” – Princess Diana

Diana Frances Spencer, better known as Diana, Princess of Wales, was born 1 July 1961. Princess Diana was born into British nobility as the youngest child of Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer. She grew up in close proximity to the British royal family on their Sandringham Estate but being born into nobility did not guarantee an easy life for Princess Diana and the divorce of her parents affected her greatly. It was a highly emotional time for her as a young adult, and so, in 1978 she moved to London where, due to financial constraints, she had to take up with roommates whilst she looked for employment. Although she was never what one might call an academic, she was highly talented when it came to music and dance and was also a talented athlete.

Her fortunes changed in 1981 when she became engaged to Prince Charles who is first in line to the British throne as the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth II. The couple had first met in 1977 as Charles was at the time dating Diana’s older sister, Lady Sarah, but started to take more of an interest in Diana and they began dating through 1980. The relationship developed and Charles introduced Diana to his family, including the Queen in November. Charles proposed in February 1981. Following a relatively short engagement, they were married in St. Paul’s cathedral on 29 July 1981 when Diana was 22 years old. The highly televised wedding along with Diana’s natural glamour and kindness created a wholesome and positive image that she would foster for the remainder of her career as the quintessential fairytale princess adored and loved by so many. From this point forward she was no longer Lady Diana, she was Princess Diana.

The couple had two children – Prince William, who was born on 21 June 1982 and Prince Harry who was born on 15 September 1984 – however the marriage was a very unhappy one. It was clear that the couple were not a good match and the age difference of almost 13 years also caused issues. Charles started seeing a former girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles and Princess Diana had an affair with Major James Hewitt. Due to these extramarital affairs and ultimately a significant clash of personalities it became clear that their differences were irreconcilable. The couple divorced in 1992.

Despite her divorce from Prince Charles, Princess Diana continued to be actively involved in the work of the royal family, regularly representing the royals at different state functions around the world which continued to build and grow her persona and media presence.

Part of Princess Diana’s popularity stemmed from her efforts associated with what many saw as unique but sincere charity work for youth and later for those afflicted with AIDS. Princess Diana became a patron and a champion for those in need which continued to swell her already huge popularity. Her work would ultimately include not just youth and those with AIDS but also those affected by cancer and mental illness leading Princess Diana to be one of the best-known philanthropists and figureheads for the needy and unwell. Her friendly and charismatic nature made her a natural star helping to raise millions of dollars and lending a celebrity face to these important causes.

It may not have been something that she was looking for, but Princess Diana was also a beautiful woman with great taste in clothes which led to her becoming a fashion icon in the UK and worldwide during the 1980’s and 1990’s. It was during this period that she essentially became the most photographed woman of the 20th century.

In 1993 Princess Diana announced that she would be retiring from public life, but her retirement lasted barely a year as by 1994 she had announced a partial return which in actuality became another full-time globe-trotting schedule full of meetings with va...