Celebrity Name : Irving Berlin

Celebrity Real Name : Israel Baline

Date of Birth : May 11, 1888

Birth Location : Israel, Tyumen, Russia

Biography of Israel Baline :
Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888– September 22, 1989), born Israel Isidore Baline (as per ), in Tyumen, Russia (or possibly Mogilev, now Belarus), was an American composer and lyricist, one of the most prodigious and famous American songwriters in history.
Berlin, who was Jewish, was one of the few Tin Pan Alley/Broadway songwriters who wrote both lyrics and music for his songs. Although he never learned to read music beyond a rudimentary level, he composed over 3,000 songs, many of which, including “God Bless America”, “White Christmas”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, and “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” left an indelible mark on American music and culture. He produced 17 film scores and 21 Broadway scores, in addition to his individual songs.

Trivia :
* Berlin was the only person to ever find his own name on the winners’ envelope at the Oscars, winning the award for best music in an original song for the song “White Christmas” in the film Holiday Inn in 1942. Bing Crosby’s single of that song sold more than 30 million copies. Berlin was nominated for six others during his career.

* In spite of his musical career, Berlin never learned how to read music beyond a rudimentary level. He reportedly was unable to compose in any key other than F-sharp major (or, presumably, D-sharp minor, since he also wrote songs in minor keys) and owned a special piano that mechanically transposed keys while an assistant wrote out the music scores.
* Was once invited to lunch and asked inappropriate questions by Winston Churchill, who confused him with political philosopher Isaiah Berlin (’Desert Island Discs’, Radio 4, 19 April 1992)
* in 1945, while he was in Leyte, Philippines entertaining the American liberation troops, he composed the “Heaven Watch the Philippines” song.
* Became the oldest songwriter to have a hit in Billboard’s Top 100 with Taco Ockerse’s cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” recorded in 1982.
* Christmas and Easter can hardly be celebrated without Berlin’s songs, a fact Tom Lehrer had in mind when, explaining why he had written “I’m Spending Hannukah in Santa Monica,” quipped that America’s Jewish songwriters were too busy writing tunes for Christian holidays.[wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Hulk Hogan

Celebrity Real Name :  Terry Gene Bollea

Date of Birth : August 11, 1953

Birth Location : Augusta, Georgia

Biography of Terry Gene Bollea :
Hulk Hogan (born Terry Gene Bollea on August 11, 1953), is an American professional wrestler, entertainer, actor and TV star. He is one of the most successful and popular professional wrestlers in history, with a large, long standing fanbase called “Hulkamaniacs”. He currently stars on the VH1 reality show Hogan Knows Best.

Early Life and Career :
Born in Augusta, Georgia, Hogan was the third child of Italian American Pete Bollea, and Ruth Bollea, who is of French, Italian and Panamanian descent. Early in life, Terry Bollea was a standout in minor league baseball and also spent ten years playing bass guitar in several Florida-based rock bands, including Ruckus and Infinity’s End. Many of the wrestlers who competed in the Florida territory at that time would visit the bars in which Bollea was performing.
Bollea’s impressive physical stature soon caught the attention of former top-drawing wrestler Jack Brisco and his brother Gerald, both of whom convinced Bollea to give wrestling a try. Bollea had been a wrestling fan since childhood and was eager to give it a chance. He trained for nearly two years under the watchful eye of Hiro Matsuda, a hard-nosed taskmaster who casually (and to instill respect, purposefully) broke Bollea’s leg during their first training session.
Bollea wrestled his first professional match in Tallahassee, Florida on August 19, 1977 as The Super Destroyer, wrestling B. Brian Blair. Terry also used other ring names early in his career, including Terry “The Hulk” Boulder and Sterling Golden. In those formative years, Bollea would go on to win his first wrestling championships, the National Wrestling Alliance Southeastern Heavyweight Championships recognized in Alabama and Tennessee, respectively. Bollea even had an early shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, with its holder generally recognized as the industry’s #1 wrestler, in January 1979, facing NWA kingpin Harley Race.

Awards :
* Hogan was inducted to the 2005 WWE Hall Of Fame.
Hogan is one of the very few to be inducted into both the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame (2003) and the WWE Hall of Fame (2005).
* He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in April 1985. Next to the swimsuit issue, the magazine was the year’s best seller.[citation needed] He is one of only two professional wrestlers to ever appear on the cover of SI; the other is Danny Hodge.

Books :
* Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Pocket Books (WWE Copyright), 2003)

DVDs :
* nWo: Back In Black (WWE Home Video, 2002)
* Hulk Still Rules (WWE Home Video, 2002)
* Hulk Hogan: The Ultimate Anthology (WWE Home Video, 2006)[wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Howard Cosell

Celebrity Real Name : Howard Cohen

Date of Birth : March 25, 1918

Birth Location : North Carolina and
raised in Brooklyn, New York

Biography of Howard Cohen :
Howard William Cosell, born Howard William Cohen (March 25, 1918 – April 23, 1995) was an American sports journalist on American television. His abrasive personality and tendency to speak his mind, often in erudite terms unusual for a sportscaster, made him, according to one poll, both the most-liked and most-hated television reporter in the country.

Early life :
Cosell was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents had wanted him to become a lawyer. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English from New York University, he earned his law degree from the New York University School of Law. During this period, at the request of a father who had wanted restored the original Cosell family name that had been changed after they immigrated, he legally altered his surname to Cosell as of 1940.

Army Life :
Cosell was admitted to the New York state bar in 1941, but when the U.S. entered World War II, Cosell entered the United States Army Transportation Corps, where he was eventually promoted to the rank of major. During his time in the service, he married Mary Abrams in 1944.

Early career :
After the war, Cosell began practicing law in Manhattan, primarily in union law. Some of his clients were actors, and some were athletes, including Willie Mays. Cosell’s own hero in athletics was Jackie Robinson, who served as a personal and professional inspiration to him in his career.
Cosell also represented the Little League of New York, when in 1953 an ABC Radio manager asked him to host a show on New York flagship WABC featuring Little League participants. Cosell hosted the show for three years without pay, and then decided to leave the law field to become a full-time broadcaster. The show marked the beginning of a relationship with WABC and ABC Radio that would last Cosell his entire broadcasting career. [wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : George Burns

Celebrity Real Name : Nathan Birnbaum

Date of Birth : January 20, 1896

Birth Location : New york City

Biography of Nathan Birnbaum :
George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), was an American comedian and actor.
His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his equally legendary wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Enjoying a remarkable career resurrection that began at age 79, and ended shortly before his passing at age 100, George Burns was better known in the last two decades of his life than at any other time in his life and career.

Trivia :
* When Gracie Allen was buried, her tomb marker read “Gracie Allen Burns—Beloved Wife and Mother.” After George was interred with her, this was replaced with one saying “Gracie Allen and George Burns—Together Again.”
* In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the two humpback whales are named George and Gracie after Burns and Allen. Their routine was also referenced by Commander Data in a first season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
* In an episode of The Simpsons (”Rosebud”), it is implied that the fictional character Montgomery Burns was George Burns’s brother since they both have the last name. Alluding caustically to Burns’s success in his later life, his character makes a joke and then says “trust me it’ll be funny when I’m an old man.”
* A recording exists of Burns and other comedians “working blue” in front of a stag audience at a Masquers Club roast in the mid-1950s.
* During Burns’s lifetime, a Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson depicted a futuristic city with flying cars, space helmets, and a billboard that said “Performing tonight: George Burns”
* In the Eminem song “Guilty Conscience”, while Dr. Dre warns 23-year-old Eddie not to go through the robbery, he tells Eddie, “Look at the store clerk, she’s older than George Burns.”[wikipedia]

Celebrity Name :Gene Simmons

Celebrity Real Name : Chaim Witz

Date of Birth : August 25, 1949

Birth Location : Haifa, Israel

Biography of Chaim Witz :
Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949 in Haifa, Israel) is the performer and entertainment mogul best known as “The Demon”, his blood-spitting, fire-breathing, tongue-wagging persona in the rock band KISS. He plays bass guitar and does vocals. Simmons currently lives in Beverly Hills, California with his longtime partner Shannon Tweed and their two children, Nicholas and Sophie.

Early life and career :
Born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel, Simmons immigrated to New York City in 1957 with his mother—a Hungarian immigrant and the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust—after his father, Feri Witz, abandoned his family. After immigrating to the US, he took the name Gene Klein (Klein having been his mother’s maiden name). In the late 1960s, he changed his name again, this time to Gene Simmons, as he felt that “Gene Klein” did not have enough of a ring to it. Gene was heavily influenced by the books, magazines, and comics he read and the movies he saw as a child and later incorporated elements from these influences into his “Demon” character, costume, and gestures on stage. He has cited Lon Chaney Sr. as one of his favorite actors.
Simmons became involved with his first band, Bullfrog Bheer, while attending Sullivan County Community College in Fallsburg, New York. A Bullfrog Bheer song, “Little Lady”, eventually was recorded by KISS as “Goin’ Blind”, and an early-Who-ish sounding song called “Stanley the Parrot” is said to have been the original incarnation of KISS’ “Strutter”. He joined another band, Coffee, when he transferred to Richmond College in Staten Island, New York. The band made a demo, “Leeta”, which was eventually released on the KISS box set in demo form. During this time, Simmons earned a B.A. in Education from Sullivan College, and worked as a teacher in Harlem, New York.
Simmons formed the rock band Wicked Lester in the early 1970s with Stanley Eisen (also known as Paul Stanley) and recorded one album, which was never released. Dissatisfied with Wicked Lester’s sound and look, Simmons and Stanley went looking for other musicians and eventually joined up with drummer Peter Criscuola and lead guitarist Paul Frehley—who would become Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, respectively. When Simmons and Stanley’s attempts to fire their old band members met with resistance, they simply quit Wicked Lester, walking away from their record deal with Epic Records. They formed a new band with Criss and Frehley, which they soon dubbed KISS. KISS released their first self-titled debut album in February of 1974 and have continued to perform to this present day, with Simmons as lead performer on stage and the driving force behind the extensive KISS merchandising franchise.
He has two children with Shannon Tweed - a son, Nicholas (b. 22 Jan 1989), and a daughter, Sophie (b. 7 Jul 1992).

CD releases :
* Gene Simmons 1978
* Sex Money Kiss (audiobook CD) 2003
* Asshole 2004
* Monster (due in 2007)

Trivia :
* He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on Oct 15, 2006.
* Gene sent a video recording in August 2006 to an Israeli soldier severely wounded in combat in Lebanon, praising him as his hero. Gene spoke in “confident Hebrew” at one point during the video, according to AssociatedPress.[wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Gene Barry

Celebrity Real Name : Eugene Klass

Date of Birth :

Birth Location :

Biography of Eugene Klass :
Gene Barry (born June 14, 1919) is an American actor.
Born Eugene Klass to a Jewish family in New York City, New York, he exhibited early skills with his singing and violin playing. He adopted his professional name in honor of John Barrymore.
He appeared on Broadway in Catherine was Great in 1944, and, many years later, he starred in the musical La Cage aux Folles (based on the French film of the same name about a gay couple with a straight son) with George Hearn as his life partner/spouse. For his contribution to live theater, Gene Barry has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6555 Hollywood Blvd.
An early film role was in the 1953 production of The War of the Worlds. He made a cameo appearance in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 War of the Worlds, along with his 1953 co-star Ann Robinson.
Known for his suave manner, Barry starred on television in Our Miss Brooks, Bat Masterson, The Name of the Game, and Burke’s Law. He won the 1965 Golden Globe for Burke’s Law. Barry played the lead in the most famous episode of The Name of the Game, a science fiction story directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Philip Wylie called L.A. 2017. He also starred in the 1973 ITV television series The Adventurer, with Barry Morse and Catherine Schell.
Barry has appeared in a number of films, television programs, and stage shows. His wife of 60 years, Betty Clair Kalb, died in 2003. He has two sons, Michael and Frederick, and a daughter, Elizabeth.
Mr. Barry was Cub Scout Master of Pack 100 in Beverly Hills, California in the mid 1950s. [wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Fred Astaire

Celebrity Real Name : Frederick Austerlitz

Date of Birth :

Birth Location :

Biography of Frederick Austerlitz :
Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of seventy-six years, during which he made thirty-one musical films. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films which revolutionized the genre.
Balanchine and Nureyev rated him the greatest dancer of the 20th century, and he is generally acknowledged to have been the most influential dancer in the history of filmed and televised musicals. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.

Early life and career :
His father was an Austrian immigrant and a Catholic; his mother was born in the U.S. to Lutheran German parents; Astaire became an Episcopalian in 1912.
Astaire was a name taken by him and his sister Adele Astaire for their vaudeville act in 1905. Family legend attributes it to an uncle surnamed “L’Astaire”. Their vaudeville career continued, with mixed fortunes and some interruptions due to the actions of the Gerry Society, until they broke into Broadway with Over The Top in 1917. Many sources state that the Astaire siblings appeared in a 1915 film entitled Fanchon, the Cricket, starring Mary Pickford, but this is uncorroborated. Fred Astaire first met George Gershwin, who was working as a song plugger in Jerome H. Remick’s, in 1916 and struck up a close friendship which was to have profound consequences for the subsequent careers of both artists.
During the 1920s, Fred and Adele appeared on Broadway and on the London stage in shows such as Lady Be Good, Funny Face and The Band Wagon, winning popular acclaim with the theater crowd on both sides of the Atlantic. As a team they made a few recordings. They split in 1932, when Adele married her first husband, Lord Charles Cavendish, a son of the Duke of Devonshire. Fred went on to achieve success on his own on Broadway and in London with Gay Divorce, while considering offers from Hollywood.

Trivia :
Fred Astaire is biographical entry number at the Internet Movie Database.
Astaire made headlines again at age 78 when hospitalized after breaking his left wrist while riding his grandson’s skateboard, and was awarded life membership of the National Skateboard Society. At the time he remarked: “Gene Kelly warned me not to be a damned fool, but I’d seen the things those kids got up to on television doing all sorts of tricks. What a routine I could have worked up for a film sequence if they had existed a few years ago. Anyway I was practising in my drive-way.” [wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Fred Allen

Celebrity Real Name : John Sullivan

Date of Birth : May 31, 1894

Birth Location : Cambridge, York City

Biography of John Sullivan :
Fred Allen (born John Florence Sullivan on May 31, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, died March 17, 1956 in New York City) was an American comedian whose absurdist, pointed radio show (1934–1949) made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Irish Catholic parents, Allen barely knew his mother, Cecilia Herlihy Sullivan, who died of pneumonia when he was short of three years old. His father, James Henry Sullivan, and his infant brother, Robert, were taken in by one of his mother’s sisters, “my Aunt Lizzie”, around whom he focused the first chapter of his second memoir, Much Ado About Me. The father was so shattered by the mother’s death that, according to his son, he drank more heavily.
Aunt Lizzie, too, suffered: her husband, Michael, was partially paralysed by lead poisoning shortly after they married, leaving him mostly unable to work, something Allen remembered causing contention among Lizzie’s sisters. Eventually, Allen’s father remarried and offered his sons the choice between coming with him and his new wife or staying with Aunt Lizzie. Allen’s younger brother chose to go with their father, but Allen decided to stay. “I never regretted it,” he wrote.
His best-remembered gag may be his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny. Allen has been considered one of the more accomplished, daring and relevant humorists of his time. A master ad libber, he constantly battled censorship and developed routines the style and substance of which influenced future comic talents. Perhaps more than any of his generation, Fred Allen wielded influence that outlived both his contemporaries and the medium that made him famous. [wikipedia]

Celebrity Name :Flavor Flav

Celebrity Real Name : William Johnathon Drayton Jr.

Date of Birth : March 16, 1959

Birth Location : Roosevelt, Long Island, New York.

Biography of William Johnathon Drayton Jr.:
William Jonathan Drayton Jr. (born March 16, 1959), professionally known as Flavor Flav, is an American rap artist and television star. He is a founding member of the influential politically conscious hip hop group Public Enemy. After falling from the public eye, he has recently regained fame as a star of American reality television. He has starred in a series of highly-rated VH-1 programs, most recently the Flavor of Love series.

Born in Roosevelt, New York on Long Island, William Drayton graduated high school in Freeport, New York before attending Adelphi University. While rapping at Adelphi under the name MC DJ Flavor Flav, he met a graphic-design student, Carlton Ridenhour (Chuck D).
Chuck D, DJ Terminator X, Professor Griff, and Flavor Flav formed Public Enemy and released their debut album Yo! Bum Rush the Show in 1987.
Flav participated in Public Enemy as second rapper or vocalist (the primary vocalist was Chuck D), and as the band’s drummer. His stuttering vocal style has influenced rappers including Busta Rhymes and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Providing a comic foil to the political message of Chuck D, some credit Flav with the development of the rap sidekick (often referred to as a “hype man”). Unlike later practitioners of the hype man role, however, Flav’s stage presence and musical contributions were at least as strong as Chuck D’s, and his surreally absurd rapping added a humanizing light-heartedness to the group. In addition to the comic and derisive asides he offers on most Public Enemy performances, he has also taken center stage on songs such as “Too Much Posse,” the bizarre and unforgettable “Cold Lampin’ with Flava,” and “911 Is a Joke,” which provided one of the group’s most colorful music videos. On the group’s 1998 “comeback” single–following a four-year hiatus–”He Got Game,” the title song to a contemporaneous film by Spike Lee, Flav performs essentially a duet with Chuck D.
Flav often wears a clock around his neck, stating that observers will “know what time it is.” The clock became one of Flav’s trademarks, along with comic sunglasses. Flav credits himself as having been the originator of the current platinum grill craze in hip hop fashion.[citation needed] Flav acknowledges that his style is bizarre, and he is proud of his distinctiveness. Another of Flav’s trademarks is his catchphrase, a loud and exaggerated “Yeeeeaaaahhhh Booooyyyy!”
Flav has reportedly completed two solo albums, both of which were rejected by his record label,[8] Def Jam. A third LP, It’s About Time, was due to be released in 1999 but never appeared. A fourth album, “Hollywood,” is scheduled for release on October 31, 2006.

Trivia :
* Flavor Flav has 6 children and would like 4 more before he dies.
* Flav’s current mate is London Charles (Deelishis).
* Flav went to jail more than once.
* Flav as trained as a classical pianist when he was a child.
* Flav attended New York’s Adelphia University.
* Flav rapped under the alias MC DJ Flavor.
* Flav joined Chuck D to form the legendary hip hop group Public Enemy in 1982. *Their controversial hits included “Fight the Power”.
* Flav has six children by two women.
* Flav says he started wearing a clock around his neck because he wanted people to know what time it is.
* Flav appeared in the Taking Back Sunday video “You’re So Last Summer”.[wikipedia]

Celebrity Name : Fatboy Slim

Celebrity Real Name : Quentin Norman Cook

Date of Birth : July 31, 1963

Biography of Quentin Norman Cook :
Fatboy Slim (born Quentin Leo Cook on July 31, 1963, also known as Norman Cook) is an English musician in the dance music genre. His style is known as big beat, a combination of hip hop, breakbeat, rock, trance, house and rhythm and blues. He stopped using ‘Quentin’ and began calling himself ‘Norman’ long before he adopted any other pseudonym.
Studio albums :
* Better Living Through Chemistry (1996)
* You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (1998) #1 UK, #34 US Platinum
* Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars (2000) #8 UK
* Palookaville (2004) #14 UK
[wikipedia]