I’ll always remember Angela Lansbury for giving one of the most chilling performances ever in the original Manchurian Candidate. Wow was she scarily evil in that movie!
Thomas Hart Benton was, at least in my opinion, the finest American artist who ever lived. Sadly, he’s best remembered as being Jackson Pollack’s teacher/mentor.
Some people argue that Earth was already over-populated and was on the verge of a social collapse. They felt we should be seeking ways to reduce our population to avoid this. Their position is that Borlaug’s agricultural developments are not sustainable. They just create a temporary increase in food production, which leads to increased population. So when the agriculture collapses, the population will be even higher than it was before and the resulting collapse will be more severe.
Rachel Ward, who got her early big start with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and The Thornbirds. She’s done some other things, but I don’t see her name appearing as much as I expected. Such a phenomenal actress, gorgeous, and no shrill, whiny voice.
Maureen Howard, a novelist who has sort of done for Bridgeport what Philip Roth did for Newark, but has the misfortune of not being male, Jewish, or from New Jersey.
I’ve always wondered why he isn’t famous in the USA.
I’m a total anglophile so I know you can’t go a day without seeing Fry on British TV, but when I try to explain who he is to my American friends the best I can come up with is “uh, the narrator in the Hitchhiker’s Guide… movie?”
Perhaps he is just too British for America.
Another vote for Laura Nyro, but remember, she stopped recording & withdrew from the music business for about five years just when her name was most recognized among music afficionados. Everyone’s life has to take its own course, but the timing of that was unfortunate.
I also agree with NDP about Sandy Dennis: she became too known for her tics and mannerisms - and let’s face it, she had an odd look which movie critics seized upon if they didn’t particularly care for her.
I nominate Emitt Rhodes. He made a couple of great records, had a wonderful voice and could play a bunch of instruments, and he wrote good pop songs.
Wasn’t she in “Against All Odds,” too? I agree though. I thought she was gorgeous and could act well.
While I agree with you on this, I think Lansbury has an appropriate level of fame, even if most of it is directed toward a work which wasn’t her best. This is not to say she was bad at it, she did fine in that show, but she has a lot more talent, than that show allowed her to display.
A similar actress would be Shirley Booth, known today for Hazel. All one has to do is watch Come Back Little Sheba or Hotspell to see just how much talent Miss Booth had. Most people today fail to realize just what a highly respected actress Booth was at the time. It would kind of like Meryl Streep taking the part of Hazel today.
But I think Booth was famous enough, even though again, like Lansbury, her fame is not directed at her best work
Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch (although I suppose they’d be criticized for the same reason as Berlaug).
Really? I never saw anything special about him. I’m surprised he’s still around.
I think he’s quite well known in America, considering he’s never worked here as an actor or on a series like his pal Hugh Laurie. I mean, you don’t get a lot of recognition when you say his name, but when you describe him… he was in Blackadder… Jeeves and Wooster… did comedy with the guy in House… Peter’s Friends… Wilde… the artsy folks I know know exactly who he is.
My nomination is the band Level 42. They had a hit in America with “Something About You” in 1985, which everyone knows. All of the band were amazing musicians, including Mark King, who many rated the best bassist in pop music, and with the hit song, gigs supporting Madonna, albums produced by Verdine White of Earth, Wind, and Fire, they were teetering on the brink of mass popularity. But they never quite got in, at least in America. They were kind of the white man’s Earth Wind and Fire with a poppier, rockier feel, which I thought was a market their company should have pursued. Unfortunately, the founding guitarist and drummer left at a critical time, and while the replacements (Alan Murphy and Gary Husband) were brilliant, they brought a different sound that left them outside of any easily defined box.
That girl with the boobs from Liar Liar.
You’re sure right about The Christ Clone Trilogy. The second book around chapter five (I think) with all of the carnage the meteor does. The way that guy writes and how much vivid description he uses is amazing.
From music, Janis Ian. She’s experienced a pleasant revival thanks to the rebroadcast of the first SNL, where she sang “At Seventeen”. Still, she’s no Janis or even Baez, and she should be. Go see her, she’s even still alive and touring!
Outside of entertainment, I’d nominate Lev Vygotsky, who I learned about in college only because I had a “weird” psych teacher. While the other classes were memorizing Piaget’s stages, I was learning about this fascinating theory about the development of language, thought and “inner speech”, and how they related to the “zone of proximal development” and the astounding theory that true creativity comes as an adult, and that children aren’t creative at all - they’re re-creative! Blew my little 18 year old mind, let me tell you!
I just read Darlene Love’s autobiography–at one point she was called the most overqualified back up singer of all time. She’s a great singer, and it sucks that she’s not more well known. I guess part of it is that two of her best known songs (He’s a Rebel and He’s Sure the Boy I Love) were released as songs by the Crystals.
Along those lines, it’s too bad Ronnie Spector never really reached the same level of fame as during her Ronette days.
I would nominate Nikola Tesla: the man invented AC electricty-the generation, transmission, and appication of AC to motors. He also invented remote control (in 1898!), and also the speedometer, the Tesla Coil, and tons of other stuff. Unfortunately, Edison is remembered, and Tesla forgotten.
Raold Amundsen : Discoverer of the South Pole and the Northwest Passage-why to people remember that fool (Robert F. Scott?)
Edward W. Teller: nuclear physicist and father of the H-Bomb. We probably owe our freedom to him
But who ever heard of Edison Girls?
Basically this, with the added point that the so-called “Green Revolution” methodology is heavily dependent on both fossil fuels and proprietary seedstock. So, great for Exxon and Monsanto, not so great for the world in general.
Harold Arlen, though my understanding he is better known today than he was a few decades ago. Everyone at least knows the names George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter, but few people can name the guy who wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Paper Moon,” “Stormy Weather,” and a couple dozen other classics.
Frankly, songwriters in general should be more famous than they are. Good singers are a dime a dozen compared to really good songwriters, but the singers get ten times the fame and money.