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A storybook hero, the original screen cowboy, ever forthright and honest, even when (as was often the case) he played a villain, William S. Hart lived for a while in the Dakota Territory, then worked as a postal clerk in New York City. In 1888 he began to study acting. In 1899 he created the role of Messala in "Ben-Hur", and received excellent reviews for his lead part in "The Virginian" (1907). His first film was a two-reeler, His Hour of Manhood (1914). In 1915 he signed a contract with Thomas H. Ince and joined Ince's Triangle Film Company. Two years later he followed Ince to Famous Players-Lasky and received a very lucrative contract from Adolph Zukor. His career began to dwindle in the early 1920s due to the publicity surrounding a paternity suit against him, which was eventually dismissed. He made his last film, Tumbleweeds (1925), for United Artists and retired to a ranch in Newhall, CA. By that time audiences were more interested in the antics of a Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson than the Victorian moralizing of Hart. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, NY.

Richard Strauss was a German composer best known for symphonic poem 'Also sprach Zarathustra' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) used as the music score in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by director Stanley Kubrick.

He was born Richard Georg Strauss on June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria (now Germany). His father, named Franz Strauss, was the principal horn player at the Royal Opera in Munich. Young Strauss was taught music by his father. He wrote his first composition at the age of 6. From the age of 10 he studied music theory and orchestration with an assistant conductor of the Munich Court Orchestra. He was also attending orchestral rehearsals. In 1874 Strauss heard operas by Richard Wagner, but his father did not share his son's interest and forbade him to study Wagner's music until the age of 16.

Strauss studied philosophy and art history at Munich University, then at Berlin University. In 1885 he replaced Hans von Bulow as the principal conductor of the Munich Orchestra. Strauss emerged from under his father's influence when he met Alexander Ritter, a composer, and the husband of one of the nieces of Richard Wagner. He abandoned his father's conservative style and began writing symphonic tone poems. In 1894, Strauss married soprano singer Pauline Maria de Ahna. She was famous for being dominant and ill-tempered, but she was also a source of inspiration to Strauss, resulting in the preferred use of the soprano voice in his compositions.

The image of Richard Strauss and his music was abused by the Nazi propaganda machine, to a point of damaging the composer's posthumous reputation. Richard Strauss was trapped in Nazi Germany just as the Russian intellectuals were under Stalin in the Soviet regime. Strauss' name and music was used by the Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who appointed Strauss, without his consent, to the State Music Bureau, as a mask on the ugly regime. Strauss was commissioned to write the Olympic Hymn for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. His cautious apolitical position was the only way to survive and to protect his daughter-in-law Alice, who was Jewish.

In 1935 Strauss was fired from his job at the State Music Bureau. He refused to remove from the playbill the name of his friend and opera librettist, the writer Stefan Zweig, who was Jewish. Later Gestapo intercepted a letter from Strauss to Zweig, where Strauss condemned the Nazis. Strauss' daughter-in-law Alice was placed under the house arrest in 1938. In 1942 Strauss managed to move his Jewish relatives to Vienna. There Alice and Strauss's son were later again arrested and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss' personal effort saved them. They were returned under house arrest until the end of the Second World War.

Richard Strauss died on September 8, 1949, in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany at the age of 85. Strauss' symphonic poem 'Also sprach Zarathustra' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) was recorded under the baton of Herbert von Karajan and was used as the music score in '2001: A Space Odyssey' by director Stanley Kubrik, as well as in many other films.

Tully Marshall intended to pursue a legal career, until he tried a dramatic course at Santa Clara University. He started stage work in San Francisco in 1883 and moved to New York in 1887, where he played in various roles on Broadway and on the road. After a few small parts in films he was given the role of the High Priest of Babylon in the D.W. Griffith classic, Intolerance (1916). One of his finest roles in silents was that of an old frontiersman in another classic, The Covered Wagon (1923).

When sound arrived Marshall was very much in demand and worked for nearly every major studio. His last film was Behind Prison Walls (1943). He died on March 10, 1943, after a 60-year career in entertainment.

Louis Lumière was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema. His parents were Antoine Lumière, a photographer and painter, and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière, who were married in 1861 and moved to Besançon, setting up a small photographic portrait studio. Here were born Auguste Lumière, Louis and their daughter Jeanne. They moved to Lyon in 1870, where their two other daughters were born: Mélina and Francine. Auguste and Louis both attended La Martiniere, the largest technical school in Lyon. At age 17, Louis invented a new process for film development using a dry plate. This process was significantly successful for the family business, permitting the opening of a new factory with an eventual production of 15 million plates per year. In 1894, his father, Antoine Lumière, attended an exhibition of Edison's Kinetoscope in Paris. Upon his return to Lyon, he showed his sons a length of film he had received from one of Edison's concessionaires; he also told them they should try to develop a cheaper alternative to the peephole film-viewing device and its bulky camera counterpart, the Kinetograph. This inspired brothers Auguste and Louis to work on a way to project film onto a screen, where many people could view it at the same time. By early 1895 they invented a device which they called the Cinématographe, a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures, and patented it on 13 February 1895. Their screening of a single film, Leaving the Factory (1895), on 22 March 1895 for around 200 members of the Society for the Development of the National Industry in Paris was probably the first presentation of projected film. Their first commercial public screening at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895 for around 40 paying visitors and invited relations has traditionally been regarded as the birth of cinema. The cinematographe was an immediate hit, and its influence was colossal. Within just two years, the Lumière catalogue included well over a thousand films, all of them single-shot efforts running under a minute, and many photographed by cameramen sent to various exotic locations. The Lumière brothers saw film as a novelty and had withdrawn from the film business by 1905. The Lumière freres' cinematographer was not their only invention. Mainly Louis is also credited with the birth of color photograph, the Autochromes, using a single exposure trichromic basis (instead of a long three-step exposure): a glass plaque is varnished and embedded with potato starch tinted in the three basic colors (rouge-orange, green and violet-blue), vegetal coal dust to fill the interstices and a black-and-white photographic emulsion layer to capture light. They were the main and more successful procedure for obtaining color photographs from 1903 to 1935, when Kodachrome, then Agfacolor and other less fragile film based procedures took over. An Autochrome is positivated from the same plaque, so they are unique images with a soft toned palette. As the Institut Lumière describes them, they are a middle point between photography and painting (akin specially to pointillism technique), because of their pastel shades and easy but still static pose looks.

Alfred Stieglitz is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributors to the history of photography. He contributed not only scientific and artistic photographic studies, but also introduced modern art to America and furthered the theory of photography as art. Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey on January 1, 1864.

The renowned photographer Stieglitz first studied photochemistry with Hermann Wilhelm Vogel at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, from 1882-1886, and took his first photographs in 1883. He continued to travel and photograph in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland until 1890, when he returned to New York City. From 1890 to 1895 he was a partner in a photogravure firm. During this time he concentrated on photographing the streets of New York City. In 1894, Stieglitz travelled to Europe and was elected a member of the Linked Ring, a pictorialist society in London. In 1902, Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession Movement which attempted to prove that pictorialist photography was a fine art form. From 1903 to 1917, Stieglitz was publisher and director of Camera Work magazine.

The graphic section was run by Edward Steichen (1879-1973). In 1905, Stieglitz opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession "291" on Fifth Avenue in New York City with Steichen. Along with the other original members, Gertrude Kasebier and Clarence H. White, they formulated their mission to secede from conventional expectations and explore the creative potential of photography from both a theoretical and scientific point of view. Needing space to gather, work and exhibit, the gallery was open to and exhibited such paintings by Cezanne, Picasso, Braque and Matisse. The gallery was also a gathering place for writers, philosophers and musicians.

Georgia O'Keeffe and Stieglitz began their relationship in 1917; she eventually became his wife. Over the next twenty years together, Stieglitz made more than 300 images of O'Keeffe.

Accomplished photographic scientist, photographer, gallery owner, art dealer, collector and writer, Stieglitz was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in 1971. Throughout his life, until his death in 1946, he fought for the art and science of photography. A great, fearless fight. And if he were alive today he would still be fighting. Photography as a respected art form is still not accepted by some today.

Elinor Glyn was born on 17 October 1864 in Jersey, Channel Islands. She was a writer and actress, known for It (1927), Knowing Men (1930) and The Price of Things (1930). She was married to Clayton Glyn. She died on 23 September 1943 in London, England, UK.

Frank Wedekind was born on 24 July 1864 in Hanover, Kingdom of Hanover [now Lower Saxony, Germany]. He was a writer, known for Spring Awakening, Pandora's Box (1929) and Spring Awakening. He was married to Tilly Wedekind. He died on 9 March 1918 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

Born into a large Bohemian-Polish family in Chicago on March 14, 1864, William N. Selig was one of the true pioneers of the motion picture industry. Though not widely remembered today, his Selig Polyscope Co. was responsible for many landmark events in early cinema. Among these were construction of the first permanent studio in Los Angeles in 1908-1909, production of the first cliff-hanger serial (The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913)) and the first film version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910).

After working as an upholsterer, then a vaudeville magician in Chicago, Selig traveled to northern California in 1890 to run a fruit ranch in a small town called Chicago Park. The move was partially necessitated by health problems he was having at the time. By 1893 William had recovered enough to start an African-American minstrel company known as "Selig and Johnson's Colored Minstrels." Performing in the San Francisco area, the most notable member of this troupe was Bert Williams, who would become the greatest African-American comedian of the vaudeville era.

Upon seeing an Edison Kinetescope at the Dallas Fair in 1894, Selig decided to return home to Chicago where he began working on his own camera-projection system. In 1896 he founded one of the world's first motion picture studios. From very modest beginnings, his Selig Polyscope Co. quickly grew to be one of the major players during the pioneer era. With the help of a machinist named Andrew Schustek, Selig designed one of the earliest camera-projectors. Based largely on the Lumiere Cinematographe, his invention would share its name with his fledgling studio.

The first decade of Selig Polyscope's operation was marked by legal turmoil, due largely to the efforts of Thomas A. Edison's lawyers. Finally, in 1909, Selig and several other studio heads formed an uneasy alliance with Edison. The resulting Motion Picture Patents Company and its distribution arm General Films would dominate the film industry until 1915. That year the independent companies won a major victory when the Supreme Court ruled the M.P.P.C. an illegal monopoly.

"Colonel" Selig's ambitions were not strictly confined to cinema. Around 1911 he began acquiring land for what would become the largest private zoo in the world. The Selig Zoo at Eastlake (now Lincoln) Park, in Los Angeles was a logical extension of his movie business. Over the years, William had accumulated a sizable collection of animals for his jungle movies. The 32-acre zoo allowed him to showcase his menagerie while leaving room for studios at the back of the grounds. Many famous animals resided at the zoo, including the original Leo the MGM lion.

Once the zoo/studio was in operation, Selig no longer needed the first L.A. studio that director Francis Boggs had opened for him in Edendale (now Echo Park). An up-and-coming producer named William Fox decided to lease that site for his soon-to-be-famous company. Another giant of the industry benefited from Selig's initial investment in Los Angeles. Louis B. Mayer moved into the studios at the zoo once Selig retired from major production around 1920. The Colonel had no desire to compete against these younger, more aggressive movie moguls.

There were other factors which led William to leave the industry he helped found. With the release of The Spoilers (1914) in 1914, Selig enjoyed his greatest success. At this point Selig Polyscope appeared to have a bright future, but things quickly changed. During this time the industry was evolving from producing the short films Selig specialized in to the modern feature-length productions. While William did make longer films like "The Spoilers," he felt shorts were the way of the future. The onset of World War I also hurt Selig Polyscope, given its extensive European operations. Finally, the dissolution of the Patents Company made the industry more competitive, dooming the pioneer studios.

Selig moved into independent production after closing his studios, working infrequently until the 1930s. The Colonel's glory days were past, though, and he faded into obscurity. The cost of operating a large zoo and the Great Depression had reduced Selig's fortune to nothing. He became a literary agent in his later years, selling off the story rights purchased years before for his films. In 1947 Selig and several other film pioneers were awarded special Oscars. He died the following year on July 15, with his loving wife of many years, Mary, at his side.

David Torrence was the second child born out of eleven children to Henry Torrance Thomson and Janet Bryce. Davis given name was 'David Bryce Thomson." Born on Jan 17,1863 in Edinbough,Scotland. David's brother was character star 'Ernest Torrence' who was 15 years younger than David. Ernest was the first of the two to come to California and become actors. Educated in both England and Germany, David moved with equal ease from stage to screen in the early part of the 20th century. Following the completion of the classic silent films Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1913) with the legendary stage actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, and The Prisoner of Zenda (1913), however, David returned to focus on Broadway plays and enjoy life on a Mexican ranch. A steep reversal of fortunes aggravated a necessary return to Hollywood following World War I, and, fortunately for his fans, he stayed for nearly two decades. Playing a number of leads during his silent heyday, many of them men of influence, his portrayals of stern-faced villains may not have rivaled that of brother Ernest, but David made for quite a contemptible gent in a few. In his first sound picture, the historical drama Disraeli (1929), he played an austere-looking anti-Semitic head of the Bank of England whose refusal to finance the Suez canal results in action taken by Prime Minister Disraeli, played by George Arliss. David also went on to lend Arliss prime support in the comedy drama A Successful Calamity (1932), and in another biopic history lesson, Voltaire (1933). Come the advent of sound, his characters continued to prestigious characters (bankers, merchants, lawyers, and attorneys), but grew smaller in size until he faded out in unbilled parts, such as in The Dark Angel (1935) and Lost Horizon (1937). Comedy fans might remember David for his performance as Scots attorney Mr. Miggs in the Laurel and Hardy feature Bonnie Scotland (1935). His last roles included, Rulers of the Sea (1939) and Stanley and Livingstone (1939). David Torrence died Dec 26,1951 Beverly Hills, Ca. and is buried at the Inglewood Cemetery while others give 1951.

American novelist, writer and minister Thomas Dixon was born in Shelby, NC. His father was a Baptist minister and, by inheritance, a slave-owner. As a young boy Dixon helped out on the farms the family owned; although he would later say he detested farm labor, he admitted that it helped him to better understand the life of the working class Southerner after the Civil War. He came to despise what he saw as the collaboration among corrupt local politicians, occupying Union troops and an oppressive federal government that worked to keep down the defeated South. While still a young boy he became aware of the Ku Klux Klan when a local Confederate widow had accused a freed slave of raping her daughter. Getting no help from the authorities, the woman turned to Dixon's family--his uncle commanded the unit the widow's husband served in during the Civil War. The Klan found the accused rapist and dragged him to the town square, where they hanged and shot him. The incident made a deep impression on the young Dixon, who believed that the Klan's actions were justified since the woman--and, by extension, all Southerners--could not trust the governing authorities to protect them. Dixon's uncle and father were both Klan members, who joined because they saw the Klan as the only way to bring order to a South still embroiled in violence and outlawry after the war. However, they saw the Klan eventually turn into the kind of corrupt and brutal gang it was supposed to be protecting people against, and they soon left it.

Young Dixon entered the Shelby Academy in 1877, getting his diploma two years later, at which time he enrolled in Wake Forest University. An excellent student, it took him just four years to earn his masters degree in history and political science. After graduation he received a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, where he befriended another student who went on to great success--future US President Woodrow Wilson (I).

In 1884 Dixon left Johns Hopkins for New York City, where he intended to have a career as a journalist and also act on the Broadway stage. His acting career was a bust, however, and he soon returned to North Carolina. He enrolled in Greensboro (NC) Law School, and in 1885 obtained his law degree. He then became involved in local politics, and was elected to the North Carolina legislature. However, he declined to run for re-election when his term was up, saying he was shocked and disgusted by the corruption and shady dealings he saw. He then became an advocate for the rights of Confederate veterans, and that gained him a following all through the South. After a short time practicing law, Dixon left the profession to become a minister. In 1886 he was ordained as a Baptist minister and moved to Greensboro, NC, then to Goldsboro. A year later he took over the Second Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC, then later was hired to take over a church in Boston, MA. In 1889 he took a position at a church in New York City. It was there that he ran into the "big time", associating with such well-known figures as John D. Rockefeller and Theodore Roosevelt (who he helped in Roosevelt's campaign for Governor of New York). However, Dixon eventually tired of what he saw as the corruption of the church, business and politics, and in 1895 he resigned from the Baptist ministry altogether, preferring to preach at nondenominational churches. He began preaching and lecturing all over the country, gaining an even bigger following, especially in the South. At one point he attended a production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel of the pre-Civil War South, "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Infuriated at what he considered the distortions, misrepresentations and falsehoods about the South in the play, he wrote his first novel, "The Leopard's Spots" (1902), which was meant as a refutation of Stowe's novel, and actually incorporated several of that novel's characters, including Simon Legree.

If there is one thing Dixon is famous for, however, it is his novel "The Clansman", a heavily romanticized fictional accounting of life in the post-Civil War South, in the period known as Reconstruction. It portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as the protectors of Southern womanhood against the ravages of newly freed black slaves and a force for law and order, instead of the murderous terrorist gang they actually were. The book was turned into a film by famed director D.W. Griffith (I)--the controversial The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Thomas Dixon died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Raleigh, NC, on April 3, 1946, at 82 years of age.

Along with his better-known French counterpart Georges Méliès George Albert Smith was one of the first filmmakers to explore fictional and fantastic themes, often using surprisingly sophisticated special effects. His background was ideal--an established portrait photographer, he also had a long-standing interest in show business, running a tourist attraction in his native Brighton featuring a fortune teller. His films were among the first to feature such innovations as superimposition (Smith patented a double-exposure system in 1897), close-ups and scene transitions involving wipes and focus pulls. He also patented Kinemacolor--the world's first commercial cinema color system--in 1906, which was extremely successful for a time, despite the special equipment required to project it

French director and actor of American and French films. He began his career as a stage actor at the Odeon in Paris, then at the Eclair, where he became artistic director and chief director of the theatre school in 1910. Five years later he traveled to America and began a successful career as a film director for a variety of American film companies. After more than a decade as a director, he returned abruptly to acting and appeared in a wide range of roles in a number of films before his death at 53.

Ben Webster was born on 2 June 1864 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Drake the Pirate (1935), The Gay Lord Quex (1917) and 12.10 (1919). He was married to May Whitty. He died on 26 February 1947 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Was a cafe concert entertainer before Charles Pathe noticed him during the Universal Exhibition, where Zecca had been assigned to Pathe's stand. After a few daysPathe asked Zecca if he would like to work in cinematography. Zecca immediately accepted the offer and rapidly became Pathe's right hand man and head of production.

William Collier Sr. was born on 12 November 1864 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Cain and Mabel (1936), A Successful Failure (1934) and Nothing But the Truth (1929). He was married to Paula Marr (actress) and Louise Allen. He died on 13 January 1944 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Alice was a silent screen comedic actress. She worked in a number of Keystone films and also appeared in the early films that Chaplin did. Other actors that Alice worked with who went on to become big stars were Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler . Alice was married and divorced from Broadway actor Harry Davenport. Alice was the mother of Dorothy Davenport who was married to Paramount matinee idol Wallace Reid.

Maurice Leblanc was a prolific French author born in Rouen on November 11, 1864. He had studied law, but abandoned that for a career in writing. He initially wrote for various periodicals, with "Une Femme" being his first published work in 1887. He gained fame in France and abroad after starting his Arsène Lupin series of novels. Lupin was a gentleman-thief who was a master of disguise and made his first appearance in 1905 in "L'arrestation d'Arséne Lupin". In 1908 LeBlanc pitted Lupin against Sherlock Holmes in "Arsène Lupin Versus Holmlock Shears". Leblanc would eventually produce 20 volumes worth of Lupin's adventures. On November 6, 1941, Leblanc died in Perpignan, France, at the age of 76.

George Nichols was born on 28 October 1864 in Rockford, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Flirt (1922), The Midnight Express (1924) and Jess (1912). He was married to Viola Alberti. He died on 20 September 1927 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec was born on 24 November 1864 in Albi, Tarn, France. He is known for Coded (2021). He died on 9 September 1901 in Saint-André-du-Bois, Gironde, France.

Louise Mackintosh was born on 24 December 1864 in Hastings, East Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Little Giant (1933), They Just Had to Get Married (1932) and Compromised (1931). She was married to Robert Rogers. She died on 1 November 1933 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

John Jacob Astor was born on 13 July 1864 in Rhinebeck, New York, USA. He was married to Madeleine Talmadge Force and Ava Willing. He died on 15 April 1912 in North Atlantic Ocean.

Léon Gaumont was born on 10 May 1864 in Paris, France. He was a producer and editor, known for The First Men in the Moon (1919), Images de Chine (1905) and La nuit de noces de Calino (1911). He was married to Camille Maillard. He died on 10 August 1946 in Sainte-Maxime, Var, France.

George Washington Carver was born on 12 July 1864 in Diamond Grove, Missouri, USA. He died on 5 January 1943 in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA.

Walter Walker was born on 13 March 1864 in New York, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), Everybody's Old Man (1936) and Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933). He died on 4 December 1947 in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, USA [now Hawaii, USA].

Started as a jockey and steeple-chase rider, then worked on "Lucky" Baldwin's ranch in Arcadia, California. Joined Ringling Bros. Circus and then with Burgess Pawnee Indian Show. Played in Vaudeville before being with Universal Film Company for six years, beginning in 1912. Was in Fox westerns with William Farnum for one year, with William S. Hart for three years and worked for Leo Maloney circa 1925 through 1929.