Peggy Lee. She not only “wrote music for films, acted, and created conceptual record albums—encompassing poetry, jazz, chamber pop, and art songs,” but was the embodiment of the sexy torch singer – just listen to Fever or Hey, Big Spender.
In movies, Peter Lorre and Rosalind Russell - I’ll happily watch anything were in (not together, sadly, but separately).
Too many in music to mention, but since I haven’t seen him on anyone else’s list yet I’ll put in Benny Goodman.
John Garfield is my all-time favorite actor. Body and Soul, Force of Evil, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Four Daughters (with another favorite Priscilla Lane and her sisters) and Humoresque are some of the best films of late 30’s and 40’s. He also did a whole series of movies with the same with similar existential themes: He Ran All the Way, Nobody Lives Forever, Out of the Fog, Dust Be My Destiny and They Made Me A Criminal. Finally he made two of the best war movies of WWII, Destination Tokyo and Pride of the Marines. Supposedly when he died at 39 his funeral was attended by more mourners than any star since Valentino.
Memphis Minnie is my all-time favorite female blues singer and guitarist. Her work is almost unique for the 30’s and 40’s when she played though she is widely imitated today. The most amazing thing about her recordings is the quality of the sound considering their age.
My favorite Hollywood singers and dancers: Kelly, O’ Connor, Astaire, the entire Rat Pack, Crosby all had their heyday before I was born in 1963. I loved 50s reruns back in the 70s.
In music, Mozart and Bach are the quickest and easiest choices, but I’ll add Jazz and blues artists of the 1920’s and '30’s. Yeah, I know, a lot of the greats were still performing after my birth, but the '20’s, '30’s, Dixieland and barrelhouse periods were at their peak long before I was born.
In literature, where do I begin? Well, a few favorites tossed out at random: Dorothy Sayers, Elias Lonnrot, E.A. Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dante, Homer, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Rumi, Hafiz, Meister Eckhart. Some overlap between Tolkien’s life and mine, but not much.
Visual arts – Tiffany for the windows, many anonymous or at least unknown to me stained glass makers of the Cathedral-building period in Europe. Oh!! The artists who made the Ishtar Gate in Babylon during the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II. I love that, the bits of the real thing that remain, and the reconstruction that I saw in Berlin. Just about 2500 years before my birth, that, give or take a few.
Architecture: Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, who designed the fabulous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and Sedefhet Mehmed Aga, who designed the Blue Mosque just across the way. Sinan, who designed the Rustem Pasha Mosque and was the chief architect for Suleiman the Magnificent and other Sultans during the Ottoman period.
Most great art was created before my birth. This could be an infinite list.
:mad:
How dare you be almost a decade younger than me!