Ruth Gordon Jones was an American actress, screenwriter, and playwright. She began her career performing on Broadway at age 19. Known for her nasal voice and distinctive personality, Gordon gained international recognition and critical acclaim for film roles that continued into her 70s and 80s. Her later work included performances in Rosemary's Baby (1968), What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969), Where's Poppa? (1970), Harold and Maude (1971), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), Any Which Way You Can (1980), and My Bodyguard (1980).
Oscar Levant was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian, and actor. He had roles in the films Rhapsody in Blue (1945), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), An American in Paris (1951), and The Band Wagon (1953). He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for recordings featuring his piano performances. He was portrayed by Sean Hayes in the Broadway play Good Night, Oscar, written by Doug Wright. Levant appeared as himself in the Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue (1945).
Rufus Putnam was an American military officer who fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. As an organizer of the Ohio Company of Associates, he was instrumental in the initial colonization by the United States of former Native American, English, and French lands in the Northwest Territory in present-day Ohio following the war.
Arthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his column in The Washington Post. At the height of his popularity, it was published nationwide as a syndicated column in more than 500 newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2004 for his play I Am My Own Wife. He also wrote the books to the Broadway musicals Grey Gardens in 2006, The Little Mermaid in 2007, Hands on a Hard Body in 2012, and War Paint in 2017. His play Good Night, Oscar made its Broadway debut in 2023.
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group.
Jim Knipfel is an American novelist, autobiographer, and journalist.
Frederic Ward Putnam was an American anthropologist and biologist.
Rhapsody in Blue, subtitled The story of George Gershwin is a 1945 American biographical film about composer and musician George Gershwin, released by Warner Brothers. Robert Alda stars as Gershwin. Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Hazel Scott, and Anne Brown also star, while Irving Rapper directs. The film was released in the United States on September 22, 1945.
The Unimportance of Being Oscar is a 1968 memoir by writer/pianist/radio personality/actor Oscar Levant. The book is known for Oscar's laconic witticisms, such as "everyone in Hollywood is gay, except Gabby Hayes — and that's because he is a transvestite."
"Love Is Here to Stay" is a popular song and jazz standard composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin for the movie The Goldwyn Follies (1938).
Patricia Anne zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst was an American film actress of the late 1930s.
Gerold Frank was an American writer and ghostwriter. He wrote several celebrity memoirs and was considered a pioneer of the "as told to" form of (auto)biography. His two best-known books, however, are The Boston Strangler (1966), which was adapted as the 1968 movie starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda, and An American Death (1972), about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Kenneth Meyer Setton was an American historian and an expert on the history of medieval Europe, particularly the Crusades.
William Miller, FBA was a British-born medievalist and journalist.
Delbert Dwight Davis, was an American comparative anatomist and curator of zoology at the Chicago Natural History Museum.
Frances Spatz Leighton was an American author, ghostwriter, and journalist. She ghostwrote several memoirs and accounts of Washington D. C. life, writing over 30 books, including My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House (1961) and My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy (1969). She was born in Ohio and attended Ohio State University, but did not graduate. Leighton soon moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a journalist for several publications, including The American Weekly. She ghostwrote her first memoir in 1957, of a chef for the President of the United States.
