Compact Biographies

In episode 3 of season 7 of 5 Minute Biographies, we take a brief look at the life of a man who arguably defined a music genre but was also successful in many others - Elvis Presley.

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“Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered… the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith… All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.” – Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket Biography

Thomas Becket was born on 21 December 1119 or as later historians would have it, 1120, in Cheapside, London. His father was Gilbert Beket who’s father was from Thierville, which is in Normandy, France. Thomas’s mother, Matilda, was also descended from Normans and it is thought that her family was from near Caen, which is also in North Western France, not too far away from Thierville. Gilbert was a merchant, but by the 1120’s had become a property owner and lived from the rental income of his properties in London. At one point, Gilbert also served as Sheriff of the city and he and his wife were buried in the old St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Thomas Becket was exposed to the grander things in life, such as hawking and hunting at a fairly young age, by one of his father’s wealthy friends called Richer de L’Aigle, who would invite Thomas to his estates in Sussex, and it is thought that Thomas learned a lot from him.

When he was ten years old, Thomas Becket was sent to Merton Priory to study, and later attended a London grammar school, although it is not known for sure which one. His studies consisted of no specific subjects other than the standard Trivium and Quadrivium. New students would study the Trivium syllabus first, consisting of grammar, logic and rhetoric and then move on to the Quadrivium which consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. They were considered preparatory educational steps that would need to be taken before going on to study either philosophy or theology. Thomes went to Paris to study further when he was about twenty years old, but his skills did not dramatically improve.

At about this time or slightly later, Gilbert Beket started to suffer financially and Thomas was forced to earn his keep by working as a clerk. Gilbert managed to get him work rather influential people, culminating in Thomas working for Theobold of Bec who was at the time, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Theobold of Bec came to trust the young Thomas Becket and sent him on important missions to Rome. He also enabled Thomas to further his education by sending him to study at Bologna and Auxerre where he learned canon law. In 1154, Theobold named Thomas Archdeacon of Canterbury and gave him rewards for services rendered. Called benefices, these included prebends at Lincoln and St. Paul’s Cathedral as well as the office of Provost of Beverley. Thomas was very effective in all of these positions, so much so, that Theobold recommended to King Henry II that Thomas should be considered for the vacant position of Lord Chancellor. The King agreed and appointed Thomas Becket to the position in January 1155.

On 18 April 1161, Theobold of Bec died, and Thomas Becket was nominated as his successor. His election to the post was confirmed on 23 May 1162 by a Royal Council which consisted of Bishops and Noblemen, and he was ordained as a priest ten days later. The next day, the 3rd June 1162, Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester and the other bishops of Canterbury consecrated him as archbishop.

Problems started to develop almost immediately between the new archbishop and the King. Henry had hoped that Thomas Becket would continue to put the Royal government first, but this didn’t happen. Thomas resigned as chancellor and started to seek to recover the rights of the archbishopric. The King began attempts to gain favour with the other bishops and sway them against Thomas in Westminster in October of 1163. The King was seeking approval of the rights of the Royal government over the church, and also wanted weaker connections with Rome.

In the second episode of season seven of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of a man whose rose from nothing to become Archbishop of Canterbury, only to be killed by a King who couldn't get what he wanted - Thomas Becket.

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“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein Biography

Albert Einstein was born into a non-observant Ashkenazi Jewish family on 14 March 1879 in Ulm a city on the River Danube in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg, in the German Empire. It is now in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. His parents were Pauline Koch and Hermann Einstein who was an engineer and a salesman.

Not long after Albert was born, in 1880, the Einstein family moved to Munich where Hermann and his brother Jakob founded a company which manufactured electrical equipment. From the age of five, Albert attended a Catholic school in Munich and transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium three years later. He continued his primary and secondary education there for the next seven years.

In 1894, the Einstein family were forced to relocate again due to the failure of Hermann and Jakob’s business. They headed to Italy, first to Milan and then to Pavia but Albert stayed behind in Munich to complete his studies. He became more and more frustrated with the gymnasium’s method of teaching though and he clashed with the authorities there and so when the family moved to Pavia, he joined them in December 1894.

The following year, at the age of sixteen, Albert Einstein sat but failed the entrance exam for entry into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. It was noticed though that it was the general studies part of the exam that performed poorly on, whereas his performance on the physics and mathematics parts was excellent. So, he became a pupil at the Argovian cantonal school in Aarau instead, which is where he completed his secondary education.

In January 1896, in order to avoid military service, Albert Einstein renounced his citizenship of the Kingdom of Württemberg and in September of the same year, he passed the Swiss high school exit exam, the Matura, with passable grades. At the age of only seventeen, he then enrolled in a four-year teaching diploma in physics and mathematics at Zurich Polytechnic.

During his time in Zurich Albert Einstein also met his future wife, Mileva Marić who had enrolled on the same course. In 1900, Einstein was awarded his diploma, but Mileva failed the mathematics portion of the exam.

After graduating, Einstein looked for a teaching post. In 1901, he became a Swiss citizen and took a job as an assistant examiner – level III at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property where he evaluated patent applications. After searching for a teaching post for two years and failing to find one, the patent office job became permanent in 1903.

Letters between Albert Einstein and Mileva which were discovered in 1987 reveal that the couple had a daughter in 1902 while Mileva was staying with her parents in Novi Sad in Serbia. However, when she returned to Switzerland she came without the child and its fate is unknown but it is believed she was either adopted or died of scarlet fever.

Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić were married in January of 1903 and in May 1904, Hans Albert Einstein, their first son was born in Bern, Switzerland. Eduard, their second son was born in Zurich in July 1910. The family moved to Berlin but it was to become apparent, that Albert had fallen in love with his first cousin, Elsa. Mileva moved back to Zurich and after five years apart, they divorced in February 1919. The same year, Albert Einstein and Elsa were married.

On 30 April 1905, completed his thesis with his Pro-forma advisor Alfred Kleiner and a dissertation entitled “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions”, and was awarded a PhD from the University of Zurich. In the same year, which would become known as his miracle year or annus mirabilis Einstein, at the age of only 26 published four papers that brought him to the attention of the academic world. The four papers covered the photoelectric effect,

In the first episode of season seven of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of a man whose name has become synonymous with the word 'genius' - Albert Einstein.

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“I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.” – David Bowie.

David Bowie Biography

David Bowie was an actor, songwriter, singer, and master of the stage, but more than any of these things, the thing that set his musical career apart from all others was his deep and abiding love of innovation in his music. It was these innovations that do and will continue to, carry on long after his passing.

Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, South London, David Bowie began to get in touch with his musical talents as a young child. He went on to study both music and art during his higher education years, which eventually led him to choose music as a professional career in 1963. For anyone who has ever struggled in music or art, you should know that even David Bowie took six years between when he began his professional career in 1963 and when he had his first major hit, “Space Oddity”, in 1969. It became the first of his entries in the UK singles charts, but it would not be his last as his career which spanned five decades would include multiple awards as well as continue the innovation of music that he began as a young man.

Always the artist as well as the musician, David Bowie began to experiment for the next three years between the success of his album in 1969 and his re-emergence in 1972 with his wildly popular “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, which for many people was their first introduction to the music they would love for the rest of their lives by David Bowie.

At around the same time, on 19 March 1970, David Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett at the Bromley Registry Office. They had a son called Duncan who was born on 30 May 1971. Although he would later describe himself as a closet heterosexual, it is at around this time that Bowie began to also experiment with his sexuality, declaring himself gay in an interview with Melody Maker in 1972 and bisexual in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1976. David and Angela would be together for a decade and ultimately divorced in 1980.

Never content to be a one-hit wonder, though, David Bowie went on another period of experimentation before he totally shifted his musical genre to something he referred to as “plastic soul.” In 1975, he released a brand new album which utilized this new style of music that he was creating. At first, the radical shift in style went down poorly with some of his earlier fans; however, it did lead to his first major success in the United States with the hit song “Fame” on his “Young Americans” album.

Having studied art as well as music and learning the craft of showmanship from his years of professional work, David Bowie went on to add acting to his career as well. He starred in his first film, the cult classic “The Man Who Fell to Earth” in 1976. As if a professional musician starring in a cult movie wasn’t enough to continue to garner scrutiny from both critics and fans, David Bowie then would emerge again in 1977 with a shifted style in his album “Low” which had a strong electronic feel to it.

Like all great artists, David Bowie knew that true success was not about riding on your achievements and coasting from one to the next until eventually, they peter out. He did what he did for his love of music and innovation, and because of this particular love of innovation, David Bowie continued to reinvent himself over the decades as an actor and as a musical innovator, often changing styles to stay current with the times instead of trying to produce music solely for an earlier era.

Some of these changes met with major success while others met with mixed and uneven reception, as was the case in his career throughout the end of the 1970s. Not one to be daunted by mixed results or even negative reception, Bowie went on to win another #1 UK top spot with his single “Ashes ...

In the 10th and final episode of season 6 of 5 Minute Biographies we take a brief look at the life of the man who Rolling Stone magazine called "the greatest rock star ever" - David Bowie.

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“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” – Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn was born in Belgium on 4 May 1929. Her father, Joseph Ruston had served as a consul to the Dutch East Indies and so she lived all over Europethroughout her childhood as his work moved him and his family from one place toanother. She took an interest in dance at an early age whilst in Switzerland and when the family arrived in London in 1948, she began training as a ballerina.

Audrey Hepburn’s mother was the Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch noblewoman who marriedAudrey’s father in Batavia in September 1925. Both had been married previously and as Joseph mistakenly believed himself to be descended from James Hepburn, the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots he changed his surname to Ruston-Hepburn as he thought the name sounded more aristocratic.

Due to her parents’ positions, Audrey had a fairly sheltered and privileged upbringing, and due to the amount of moving around that the family did, she was fortunate enough to learn five languages including English and Dutch from her parents, and later some Spanish, French, and Italian.

However, money can’t buy happiness and in 1935 Audrey suffered what she described as the most traumatic event of her life when her father unexpectedly decided to turn his back on his family when he moved to London where he became deeply involved in the Fascist movement. He and Ella were officially divorced in 1938 but Audrey later reconnected with her father in the 1960s after locating him through the Red Cross in Dublin. Sadly, he continued to be emotionally detached, but even so, she supported him financially until his death.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Audrey Hepburn lived with her mother in Arnhem, in the Netherlands as it was hoped that the Netherlands would remain neutral. However, after the Germans invaded in 1940, she started using a different name, going by Edda van Heemstra, as it was thought that having an English sounding name could cause problems.

The Nazi occupation of Holland was a very difficult time for Audrey and her family. She once said, “had we known that we were going to be occupied for five years, we might have all shot ourselves.”

Following the Allied landing on D-Day in June 1944, the daily conditions in Arnhem quickly deteriorated. After the difficulties of occupation, the Dutch were now having to deal with famine as the Germans blocked the supply routes which stopped food and goods from getting to them. Audrey Hepburn suffered from malnutrition and as a result, developed acute anaemia as well as respiratory problems.

As a probable consequence of the suffering she witnessed during the Nazi occupation, Audrey Hepburn developed a deep sense of compassion which led to her launching a second career as a humanitarian during the 1950s. She was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF for which she went on multiple overseas field missions to places like Ethiopia, Sudan, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. She worked with UNICEF for the rest of her life and went on a mission to Somalia just four months before her death. She called what she witnessed there “apocalyptic”, and went on to say, “I walked into a nightmare. I have seen famine in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, but I have seen nothing like this…”

Audrey Hepburn’s acting career took off after playing the part of a European Princess called Ann in 1953’s Roman Holiday. She received critical acclaim and won a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award, otherwise known as a BAFTA, and of course an Academy Award for her performance.

Although she won the Academy Award for Roman Holiday...

In the ninth episode of season 6 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of an actress and humanitarian who has been described by some as the most beautiful woman in the world and the most beautiful woman of the 20th Century - Audrey Hepburn.

Please consider supporting the show by buying me a coffee at http://www.5minutebiographies.com/coffee/ - Thanks!

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” – Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Biography

Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge, England, but was brought up in East London as he and his parents, Janet and Christopher moved there when Douglas was only a few months old. Three years after Douglas was born, his mother gave birth to his sister, Susan but unfortunately, only two years or so after that, Douglas’ parents divorced.

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He attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood and until 1970 attended an independent school called Brentwood School, which was also attended by a few other famous people such as Noel Edmonds, Griff Rhys Jones and Robin Day.

Adams’ form master, Frank Halford, used to joke that he stood out from the crowd because he was unnecessarily tall. By the time he was 12 he had stopped growing but had already reached a height of 6ft 5in. In reality, Douglas stood out for another, very important reason, his ability to tell a good story. In fact, he was so good, that Halford once awarded Douglas 10 out of 10 for creative writing, the only time he has ever done so.

Douglas published a number of pieces of writing whilst at school including a report about the photography club as well as spoof reviews in the school magazine which was called Broadsheet. Broadsheet was edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, which to fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a name that will be familiar as it became a character in the book. His work wasn’t only published internally at the school though as Douglas also had a short story published in the boys’ comic, The Eagle in 1965.

After school, Douglas Adams went to university at St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1971 where he immediately wanted to join the Footlights which was a student only comedy club. Participation in the club was by invitation only though and he wasn’t elected straight away, but managed to achieve his aim two years later after having written and performed reviews in a group called Adams-Smith-Adams. Adams graduated from Cambridge in 1974 with a B.A. in English literature.

Adams had a desire to continue a career in writing and so after university, he returned to London with the intention of getting into TV and radio. He met Graham Chapman from Monty Python and they formed a brief writing partnership, which led to Douglas receiving a writing credit for a Monty Python episode, one of only two people outside of the Monty Python team to do so. He even appeared briefly on TV in a couple of episodes.

After this brief foray into the world of Python, Douglas Adams found that his writing style wasn’t really what mainstream TV and radio was looking for and so in order to make ends meet, he ended up doing various odd jobs including as a chicken shed cleaner, hospital porter and even a bodyguard, but in the end as work dried up, he had to move in with his mother. The lack of writing work troubled Adams and it led to a lack of confidence, something which he would suffer from for the rest of his life.

In 1977, Adams pitched an idea for a radio series to a Radio 4 producer called Simon Brett along with an outline for the first episode. The idea was for a science fiction comedy series called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The first series was broadcast during March and April of 1978 on Radio 4 and was distributed by National Public Radio in the United States. The success of the series led to an extra episode being commissioned as a Christmas special and then a second series was broadcast in January 1980. Even though Adams had problems achieving deadlines, one way or another he managed to also complete an accompanying series of five novels which were published between 1979 and 1992.

The books were the basis of other adaptations of Hitchhikers such as comic books and computer gam...