World Biography Biofiles

Studs Terkel: America's Greatest Oral Historian

Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) -- a well-known progressive American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster who lived in Chicago. He is best known as the pre-eminent oral historian of his time, and a chronicler of the lives and travails of common Americans. Terkel also hosted a long-running radio show in Chicago.

Terkel was born in New York City on May 16, 1912 to Robert and Anna Terkel, who were Russian-Jewish immigrants, but at the age of eight his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he spent most of his life. His father was a tailor and his mother, the former Anna Finkel, was a circus performer. Studs Terkel had two brothers, Ben (1907–1965) and Meyer.

From 1926 to 1936, his parents ran a rooming house that became a home where Terkel met a wide variety of personalities. Terkel often credited his knowledge of the wider world to the tenants who gathered in the lobby of the his family's rooming house and other people who he met in nearby Bughouse Square. In 1939, Studs Terkel married Ida Goldberg (1912–1999) and they had one son, Paul (also known as Dan), who was named after progressive activist Paul Robeson.

Terkel received his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1934, but he left the legal profession to join a theater group.

Studs Terkel joined the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s, worked in radio, doing everything from voicing soap opera productions and announcing news and sports, to presenting recorded music, writing radio scripts and creating radio advertisements.

He was well-known for his radio program titled The Studs Terkel Program that aired on 98.7 WFMT Chicago between 1952 and 1997. The one-hour program was broadcast each weekday during those forty-five years. On this program, he interviewed guests as diverse as Bob Dylan and Leonard Bernstein.

But of course, Studs Terkel is best remembered as an author, and he published his first book, Giants of Jazz, in 1956. He followed it with a number of other books (see below), most focusing on the history of the United States people, as told through their own storis in oral histories. He also served as a distinguished scholar-in-residence at the Chicago History Museum. He appeared in a movie based on the Black Sox Scandal, Eight Men Out, in which he played newspaper reporter Hugh Fullerton, who tries to uncover the White Sox players' plans to throw the 1919 World Series.

Terkel received his nickname while he was acting in a play with another person who was named, Louis. In order to keep the two straight, the director of the production gave Terkel the nickname Studs after the fictional character which Terkel was reading at the time—Studs Lonigan, of James T. Farrell's trilogy.

Perhaps, Terkel was best known for his oral histories, such as the 1970 book, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, for which he assembled recollections of the Great Depression that spanned the socioeconomic spectrum, from Okies, through prison inmates, to the wealthy. His 1974 book, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, also was highly acclaimed. Working was made into a short-lived Broadway show in 1978 and was telecast on PBS in 1982.

Terkel won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for The Good War, which challenged the prevailing notion that, in contrast to the Vietnam War era, World War II was a time of unblemished national solidarity, goodwill, and unified purpose.

In 1997 Terkel was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Two years later, he received the George Polk Career Award in 1999.

Studs Terkel died on October 31, 2008 at the age of 96.

Studs Terkel Books

Bibliography of Studs Terkel (partial)

Giants of Jazz (1957)

Division Street: America (1967)

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (1970)

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (1974)

Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times (1977)

American Dreams: Lost and Found (1983)

The Good War (1984)

Chicago (1986)

The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream (1988)

Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession (1992)

Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who’ve Lived It (1995)

My American Century (1997)

The Spectator: Talk About Movies and Plays With Those Who Make Them (1999)

Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith (2001)

Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times (2003)

And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey (2005)

Touch and Go (2007)

P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening (2008)

Orson Scott Card: Science Fiction Author and Political Critic

Orson Scott Card's recent column on the mortgage crisis has gotten a lot of attention lately due to Rush Limbaugh reading the column on the air on Oct. 20.

Below is some information about Orson Scott Card and his political beliefs, along with the column:
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

Orson Scott Card (b August 24, 1951) is a bestselling American science-fiction author, critic, political writer and speaker. Card is best known for the novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986) , which both won Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Orson Scott Card was born in Richland, Washington, but raised in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil and graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah; he also spent a year in a Ph.D. program at the University of Notre Dame. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Political writing
Card is active as a critic, political writer, and speaker. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks Card began to write a weekly column named variously "War Watch", "World Watch", or "Civilization Watch", depending upon the topic. The column is published in the Greensboro Rhinoceros Times. Card also writes an "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything" column. Both columns are archived on Card's websites. Card is a vocal supporter of many aspects of George W. Bush's leadership style, the war on terror, aspects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Card was attending Mormon worship service in California on June 29 2008 when a letter from President Thomas S. Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was read out, asking all active members to "do all you can" to support the California Proposition 8 (2008) by "donating of your means and time...to preserve the sacred institution of marriage."In response to that letter, Card began a series of articles as part of his regular column in the Mormon Times "to address, one by one, my compelling secular arguments in favor of giving permanent heterosexual pairings a monopoly on legally recognized status in all societies".

Political identification
Card identifies himself as a Democrat because he is pro-gun control/anti-National Rifle Association, highly critical of free-market capitalism, and because he believes that the Republican party in the South continues to tolerate racism. Card encapsulated his views thus:

“ Maybe the Democrats will even accept the idea that sometimes the people don't want to create your utopian vision (especially when your track record is disastrous and your "utopias" keep looking like hell)... The Democratic Party ought to be standing as the bulwark of the little guy against big money and rapacious free-market capitalism, here and abroad. After all, the Republicans seem to be dominated by their own group of insane utopians—when they're not making huggy-huggy with all those leftover racists from the segregationist past. ”

He has described himself as a Moynihan Democrat, and later as a "Tony Blair" Democrat, saying he has to look outside the U.S. for someone representative for his views now that Moynihan has died and the Democrats oppose Bush. He has written columns condemning extremist liberals as being part of what's wrong with America, and praises Zell Miller for trying to save the Democratic Party. During the 2004 election Card wrote many articles supporting the Bush/Cheney ticket, criticizing John Kerry, and lambasting his own state's senator, John Edwards, as being absurd, insincere, and an opportunistic shill. Prior to the 2004 presidential race, Card had written that his state needed to regain control from people like Edwards and advocated running a strong primary opponent against Edwards should he run for reelection to the Senate. He has also been a staunch defender of Fox News, stating that "It's a good feeling to hear about our war from people who actually think it would be a good thing if we win." Card also publicly endorses children of illegal immigrants receiving in-state college tuition rates and has stated there is a need for moderation in tax cuts.

On November 6, 2006, just one day before a major election in the United States, Card wrote an opinion piece for RealClearPolitics, in which he encourages voters to support the Republicans:

“ There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror... I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. ”

On October 20, 2008, less than two weeks before the Presidential election in the United States, Card wrote an opinion piece for The Greensboro Rhino Times, where he chastises the US media for hiding the true blame for the 2008 Credit Crisis and for mis-directing public perception in favor of Senator Barack Obama. The article's aim is to find reporters who will vigorously report the truth, regardless of whether it is for or against their preferred political candidate.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

by Orson Scott Card from The Ornery American

October 20, 2008
An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

Lisa Guerrero--Sportscaster, Columnist, Playboy Model

  Lisa Guerrero

 

Lisa Guerrero (b. April 9, 1964) is an American sportscaster, model, actress, and former NFL cheerleader. She writes a sports column for the L.A. Times, and is married to Scott Erickson, a well-known professional baseball player.

Guerrero is notable for being the entertainment director for the Atlanta Falcons, the first and only woman to hold that position in the team's history. She also held the same position for the New England Patriots and the former Los Angeles Rams.

She uses Guerrero, her mother's maiden name, for reporting and modeling, and she uses her father's name, Coles, for acting. She does not use her husband's family name professionally.

In December 2005, the 41-year old Guerrero posed topless for Playboy Magazine. After her pictorial, Guerrero said that Playboy had asked her to pose for the magazine in the mid-1980s but she declined to disrobe. On June 15, 2006, Guerrero took the position of correspondent on the TV newsmagazine Inside Edition. Guerrero also became the co-host of VH1's game show The World Series of Pop Culture.

For more images of Lisa Guerrero, go to http://www.bikiniland.name/celebritywomen/lisa_guerrero.htm

Filmography of Lisa Coles Guerrero (from IMDB)

Actress:

A Plumm Summer (2007) .... Roxie Plumm

Today You Die (2005) (V) .... Reporter

"George Lopez" .... Linda Lorenzo #1 (1 episode, 2003)

- Feel the Burn (2003) TV episode .... Linda Lorenzo #1

"Sunset Beach" .... Francesca Vargas (85 episodes, 1998-1999)

- Episode #1.518 (1999) TV episode (as Lisa Guerrero Coles) .... Francesca Vargas

- Episode #1.517 (1999) TV episode (as Lisa Guerrero Coles) .... Francesca Vargas

- Episode #1.516 (1999) TV episode (as Lisa Guerrero Coles) .... Francesca Vargas

- Episode #1.514 (1999) TV episode (as Lisa Guerrero Coles) .... Francesca Vargas

- Episode #1.510 (1999) TV episode (as Lisa Guerrero Coles) .... Francesca Vargas

(80 more)

Sunset Beach: Shockwave (1998) (TV) .... Francesca Vargas

"Frasier" .... Joanne / ... (2 episodes, 1997)

- Frasier's Imaginary Friend (1997) TV episode (as Lisa Coles) .... Joanne

- Odd Man Out (1997) TV episode (as Lisa Coles) .... Woman at Airport

Fire Down Below (1997) (as Lisa Coles) .... Blonde Beauty

"Cybill" .... Mysti (1 episode, 1996)

- Cybill, Get Your Gun (1996) TV episode (as Lisa Coles) .... Mysti

"Seinfeld" .... PBS Telethon Producer (1 episode, 1994)

- The Pledge Drive (1994) TV episode (uncredited) .... PBS Telethon Producer

Love Potion No. 9 (1992) (as Lisa Coles) .... Blonde at Bar

Batman Returns (1992) (as Lisa Coles) .... Volunteer Bimbo

"Matlock" .... Blonde (1 episode, 1991)

- The Suspect (1991) TV episode (as Lisa Coles) .... Blonde

"In the Heat of the Night" .... Maria Cystak (1 episode, 1990)

- Night of the Killing (1990) TV episode (as Lisa Coles) .... Maria Cystak

Producer:

A Plumm Summer (2007) (executive producer)

Appearing as Herself:

"Inside Edition" .... Correspondent (1 episode, 2007)

- Miss USA: 'I Have Done Cocaine' (2007) TV episode .... Correspondent

"World Series of Pop Culture" .... Herself - Commentator (8 episodes, 2006)

- The Boeghy Bunch vs. Almost Perfect Strangers (2006) TV episode .... Herself - Commentator

- El Chupacabra vs. Almost Perfect Strangers/The Boeghy Bunch vs. the Velvet Rope Revolution (2006) TV episode .... Herself - Commentator

- Cheetara vs. The Velvet Rope Revolution; Peanut Butter & Ginelli vs. El Chupacabra (2006) TV episode .... Herself - Commentator

- The Boeghy Bunch vs. PDX 503/I Heart Jake Ryan vs Almost Perfect Strangers (2006) TV episode .... Herself - Commentator

- We're What Willis Was Talking About vs. El Chupacabra/The Boeghy Bunch vs. Highly Effective People (2006) TV episode .... Herself - Commentator

(3 more)

"The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" .... Herself (1 episode, 2006)

- Episode dated 2 March 2006 (2006) TV episode .... Herself

Playboy: Celebrity Centerfolds (2006) (TV) .... Herself

"Weekends at the DL" .... Herself (1 episode, 2005)

- Episode #1.27 (2005) TV episode .... Herself

Madden NFL 2006 (2005) (VG) (voice) .... Herself

"Beyond the Glory" .... Herself (1 episode, 2005)

- Sex and Sports (2005) TV episode .... Herself

"NFL Monday Night Football" .... Herself - Sideline Reporter (16 episodes, 2003)

... aka ABC Monday Night Football (USA)

... aka ESPN Monday Night Football (USA)

... aka M.N.F. (USA)

... aka Monday Night Football (USA)

... aka Thursday Night Editions of Monday Night Football (USA: new title)

- Green Bay Packers vs. Oakland Raiders (2003) TV episode .... Herself - Sideline Reporter

- Philadelphia Eagles vs. Miami Dolphins (2003) TV episode .... Herself - Sideline Reporter

- St. Louis Rams vs. Cleveland Browns (2003) TV episode .... Herself - Sideline Reporter

- Tennessee Titans vs. New York Jets (2003) TV episode .... Herself - Sideline Reporter

- New York Giants vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2003) TV episode .... Herself - Sideline Reporter

(11 more)

"The Best Damn Sports Show Period" (2001) TV series .... Herself - Reporter / ... (unknown episodes, 2001-2003)

"Southern California Sports Report" (2000) TV series .... Herself - Host / ... (unknown episodes)

"Sports Geniuses" (2000) TV series .... Herself - Co-host (unknown episodes)

"Extra" (1994) TV series .... Herself - Co-anchor (unknown episodes)

... aka Extra: The Entertainment Magazine (USA)

"Wild West Showdown" (1994) TV series (as Lisa Coles) .... K.C. Clark

New Sarah Palin Biography Page

A new World Biography bio page on Governor Sarah Palin is now up and live at:

http://www.worldbiography.net/palin_sarah.html

 and a listing of Alaska Governors is now up at:

http://www.worldbiography.net/governors_of_alaska_list.html

Ronnie Wood in Rehab After Teen Affair (with photos)--Rolling Stones Update

Ronald David "Ronnie" Wood (b. June 1, 1947, London, England) is a veteran English rock guitarist and bassist who has played in several major rock bands since the 1960s. His career is highlighted by his membership in The Rolling Stones 1976-Present), The Faces (1969-1975) and The Jeff Beck Group (1967-1969), as well as several other notable collaborations and various solo recordings. Ron Wood is also an accomplished artist.

Photos of Ekaterina Ivanova, the 19-year old who apparently is dating 61-year old Ron Wood.

It was announced on July 17, 2008, that Ron Wood entered rehab for his alcohol problems. News sources indicate that Wood entered rehab after a drinking spree following the release of the Scorsese film about the Rolling Stones.  News and internet sources also claim that. Ron Wood engaged in an affair with a 19-year old Russian-born cocktail waitress named Ekaterina Ivanova. Wood has battled alcohol addiction for decades.

The updated (as of 7/22/08) full biography of the Rolling Stones band is at: http://www.historyguy.com/biofiles/rolling_stones.html and also at http://www.worldbiography.net/rolling_stones.html

Michael Turner--Comic Artist, Creater of Witchblade and Fathom

  

 

Courtesy of Aspen MLT

Michael Turner

Courtesy of Aspen MLT

Michael Layne Turner (April 21, 1971-June 27, 2008), was an American comic book artist best known for creating the graphically beautiful and alluring female characters, Witchblade and Fathom, which were both published by Top Cow comics.  Turner also worked on DC comics titles The Flash , Identity Crisis, Supergirl, and Superman/Batman, and various Marvel comics titles.  Michael Turner founded and owned the comic entertainment company Aspen MLT.  Turner died of complications from bone cancer in a hospital in Santa Monica, California.

Family, Career, and Personal Highlights

Spouse: single, though he was engaged to Kelly Carmichael        

Children: none

               

Mother: Grace Crick

       

Siblings: Jake Turner

Place of Birth:

Crossville, Tennessee

Education

       

College: University of Tennessee

Professional Career

1994: Top Cow comics (artist)

Bibliography

Top Cow Comics

• Codename: Strykeforce - #14 (Image 8/1995)
• Ballistic #1-3 (Top Cow). 3-issue solo miniseries of the female character of the Cyberforce series.
• Witchblade #1-8, 10-22 & 25 (Top Cow)
• Tomb Raider/Witchblade and Witchblade/Tomb Raider (Top Cow)
• Fathom (vol. 1) #0, 1/2, 1-14 (Aspen Comics, 2003)
• Superman/Batman #8-13 (DC Comics, 2004) The re-introduction of Kara Zor-El/Supergirl to the DC Universe.
• Soulfire (vol. 1) (Aspen Comics, 2004-2008)

Covers

Variant incentive cover for Justice League of America #12.

DC Comics

• Teen Titans #1 variant cover (DC Comics, July/2003). Two covers were published for this issue in a 50/50 split. The Turner cover was also later used for the first trade paperback of the series.
• Action Comics #812-813, Adventures of Superman #625-626 & Superman #202-203 (DC Comics, January-February/2004). 6-part story arc "Godfall" running for two months in the three main series of Superman, with covers and script (co-written with Joe Kelly) of Turner. The art (pencils, inks and colors) of the six issues were handled by other artists of Aspen MLT.
• Superman #205 (DC Comics, 2004). Variant cover for the second issue of the For Tomorrow story arc in this series. Jim Lee, the story's artist, also drew one variant cover for an issue of the Turner story arc in Superman/Batman (in addition to his duties as regular artist for the Supergirl story).
• Identity Crisis #1-7 (DC Comics, 2004). Turner drew all covers for this series.
• The Flash #207-211 (DC Comics, 2004). Turner drew five covers for this series written by Geoff Johns, who also works in a creator-owned project with him, the series Ekos.
• Wildstorm Winter Special (DC/Wildstorm, November/2004). Cover with the characters Zealot, Apollo, Midnighter, Jack Hawksmoor and Deathblow.
• Supergirl (DC Comics, 2005). Turner drew variant covers for the first issue of this new series, featuring the Kara Zor-El Supergirl's return to continuity in his Superman/Batman story arc.
• Justice League of America #0-12 (DC Comics, 2006-2007). Turner drew various covers, shifting between regular and variants, for the first thirteen issues of the series.
• Superman/Batman #8-13,26 (DC Comics, 2004/2006). Turner drew a first and second print for #8 as well as a variant for #8. He drew one of two covers for #10, the other being drawn by Jim Lee. He drew two covers for #13. He drew both covers for #26, the issue dedicated to the passing of Jeph Loeb's son Sam.

Marvel Comics

• Wolverine: Origins #1 variant cover (Marvel Comics, 2006). The "regular" cover of this issue was done by Joe Quesada.
• Civil War #1-7 (Marvel Comics, 2006-2007). Each issue of the miniseries has three covers, one "regular cover" by series penciller Steve McNiven, one "variant cover" by Turner, and one "sketch variant cover" by Turner.
• Civil War #1 "Aspen Comics exclusive variant cover" (Marvel Comics 2006). Turner also did another cover featuring Iron Man, Captain America, and Wolverine printed as an Aspen Exclusive Variant, much like Civil War: X-Men #1.
• Black Panther #18, & Ms. Marvel #1 (Marvel, 2006). Turner drew variant covers for these two comic-books, that had both regular covers drawn by Frank Cho.
• Ultimate X-Men #75 (Marvel Comics, 2006) To introduce Ultimate Cable in 2006, Marvel commissioned Turner to to the cover for the first book of the story line.
• Incredible Hulk #100 (Marvel Comics, 2006) Turner drew a "green hulk" variant as well as a "gray hulk" variant for this issue.
• Onslaught Reborn #1 (Marvel Comics, 2006) Turner drew a "B" cover with Rob Liefeld drawing the "A" cover for this issue.
• Black Panther #23 (Marvel Comics, 2006) Currently Turner worked on covers for the Black Panther tie in to the Civil War, starting with #23
• Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #1-5 (Marvel Comics, 2007) Turner drew the variant covers for this entire series in a 50/50 split with the various artists of the individual issues.
• Ultimate Wolverine Turner was set to pencil the covers and interior art for this series, written by Jeph Loeb
• Sub-Mariner #1 and #5 Turner draws the regular cover for these issues.
• World War Hulk Turner drew an Aspen Comics exclusive variant cover for the first issue available at AspenComics.com
• Hulk #1 (Marvel Comics, 2008) Turner drew a "RED" variant cover for the first issue that was only available to advance ticket holders of Wizard Magazine's 2008 Wizard World Comic Convention in Los Angeles, CA.
• Uncanny X-Men #500 (Marvel Comics, 2008) With Greg Land and Alex Ross providing 50/50 variants, Turner drew a chase variant cover featuring some of the most notable male members of the mutant team for this milestone issue, while Terry Dodson utilized female members for his variant.^[3]

Links and Resources:

Aspen MLT, Inc

Top Cow Productions, Inc.

Wikipedia Article on Micheal Turner

New York Times Obit on Michael Turner

 

Michael Turner, a popular comic-book artist who came to fame in the mid-1990s and was best known for creating two sexy female lead characters, Witchblade and Fathom, died on June 27 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 37.

  

A cover of the comic book Fathom drawn by Michael Turner. The superheroine, who possesses water-based powers, is one of Mr. Turner’s most popular character.

 

 

The cause was complications from treatment for bone cancer, his colleague Vince Hernandez said in a statement.

Armed with only a hastily assembled five-page sample of his work, Mr. Turner was discovered at a comic-book convention in 1993 by Marc Silvestri, one of seven artists who founded Image Comics in 1992. Within months, Mr. Turner went from waiting tables to being a top-selling artist.

Mr. Turner, along with Mr. Silvestri and a few others, soon created his best-known character, Witchblade, named after a supernatural weapon that affixed itself to the arm of Sara Pezzini, a homicide detective in New York; the transformation left her provocatively clad, armed and dangerous.

The novelist and part-time comic-book writer Brad Meltzer, in a special edition of the comics-industry magazine Wizard that was devoted to Mr. Turner before he died, said: “Anyone who says they didn’t become aware of Mike when they saw one of his hot girl drawings is a liar. That’s when he hit the radar.”

Witchblade first appeared in comic books in 1995 and became the basis of a live-action series on the cable channel TNT in 2001. It ran for about two seasons.

In 1998, Mr. Turner created the aquatic Fathom, published by Top Cow Productions. In her secret identity Fathom was a marine biologist with a model’s looks named Aspen Matthews.

Two years later, Mr. Turner learned he had a type of cancer called chondrosarcoma in his right pelvis. He lost his hip, 40 percent of his pelvis and three pounds of bone and underwent nine months of radiation therapy. He eventually went into remission, only to have the cancer return several times.

In 2002, Mr. Turner founded Aspen MLT, an entertainment publishing company. The L stood for Lane, his middle name, which he rarely used. The company’s comics were delayed by a yearlong legal battle with Top Cow regarding the rights to Fathom and other properties. The case was settled out of court the next year.

In 2004, Mr. Turner began contributing work to DC and Marvel, the comics industry giants. His cover art brought him particular attention, including his illustrations for Identity Crisis, a top-selling seven-part mystery written by Mr. Meltzer, in which DC superheroes, including Superman, Green Arrow and Hawkman, are forced to question their culpability in a vengeful murder.

As with every cover they worked on, “Mike and I spoke at length about the design” of the final one for the project, Mr. Meltzer wrote in an e-mail message. The cover presented the characters as empty costumes, which ambiguously represented either the end of the age of superheroes or a rebirth.

Mr. Meltzer continued: “The only thing we argued about, as only two geeks can: whether Batman’s cowl should be flat and empty, or stiff and armored. I lost. He won. And he was right. But make no mistake, with Mike gone, the capes and cowls are most certainly empty. His covers were the first thing every reader saw. And he was the one true ‘big name’ on the book. That’s why people picked it up.”

Fans were important to Mr. Turner. He was always appreciative of people who stopped to say hello at conventions, and he signed countless autographs, even when he was confined to a wheelchair, Gareb Shamus, the publisher of Wizard, said.

Mr. Turner was born in Crossville, Tenn., on April 21, 1971, and is survived by his mother, Grace, and his brother, Jake.

In high school, Mr. Turner took an art class, but he mostly drew for his own amusement. In 1993, he was encouraged to put together a sampling of his work and to attend the San Diego Comic-Con, the nation’s largest comic convention. It was there he met the staff of Top Cow.

“We gave him his first shot,” Mr. Silvestri said. “That will always be important: that we had a little something to do with bringing Mike to the world of comics.”

One of the first tests for the new artist was to draw a building. It looked awful, “like a lump of bread,” Mr. Silvestri recalled. Still, he found Mr. Turner so affable that they tried again, this time with help from a reference book on New York architecture. The results were remarkable.

“I did a double take,” Mr. Silvestri said. “It was beautiful, incredible. More than I would’ve possibly expected from a seasoned professional. I asked him flat out, ‘Where did this come from?’ He said, ‘No one ever told me to look at a picture before.’ ”

Bobby Durham--Jazz Drummer

Bobby Durham--Jazz Drummer

Robert Joseph Durham (Feb. 3, 1937-July 7, 2008) was a jazz drummer who played with some of the best-known jazz artists of the 20th century.  Durham was well-known as an excellent jazz trio player and a specialist in the playing of brushes (soft-stroke wire drumsticks), which made him a particular favorite of vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald.  Durham died of lung cancer in Genoa, Italy at the age of 71.

Family, Career, and Personal Highlights

Spouse: Betsy Perkins Durham
Children:  Valarie Ahrar and Robbin Carver

Place of Birth:

Philadelphia, PA

Military Service:

1956-1959-U.S. Marine Corps

Professional Career :
Durham played jazz with, among others: Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Earland, Shirley Scott, Norman Granz (producer), Tommy Flanagan, Joe Pass, Harry "Sweets" Edison, The Orioles (jazz band), King James, Stan Hunter Trio, Lloyd Price, Wild Bill Davis, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Slide Hampton, Grant Green, Hary Edison, Jimmy Rowles, Al Grey, Pat Martino, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Aldo Zunino, Andrea Zonzaterra, Massimo Farao

Links and Sources:
New York Times Obit

Bobby Durham, a drummer whose precise, understated style made him much sought after as a sideman by jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, died Monday in Genoa, Italy. He was 71 and had homes near Genoa and Basel, Switzerland.

 

The cause was lung cancer, said Sandra Fuller, a friend.

Mr. Durham was probably best known for his trio work, from 1966 to 1971, with Peterson at the piano and Ray Brown playing bass. He also drew significant notice from 1973 to 1980 as an accompanist to Fitzgerald.

“One of his specialties was brushes,” said Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, referring to soft-stroke wire drumsticks.

“It’s important when you work with a singer that you play sensitively, that you don’t overwhelm,” Mr. Morgenstern said.

But Mr. Durham, he said, “was also capable of playing really good extended solos.”

Mr. Morgenstern’s assessment echoed one in 1980 by John S. Wilson, writing in The New York Times about Mr. Durham’s performance with the organist Shirley Scott and the tenor saxophonist Harold Vick.

Mr. Durham “makes his presence felt without being obtrusive,” Mr. Wilson wrote.

“He steps forward occasionally with brief, rollicking statements that add sparkle to the group, and he feeds crisp breaks to Mr. Vick,” Mr. Wilson added. “When he finally takes a solo, he builds a steady, controlled development that never gives way to gratuitous flashiness.”

Besides playing with jazz greats like Hampton, in 1962, and Ellington, in 1966, Mr. Durham made recordings with, among others, the trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge, the pianist Tommy Flanagan, the guitarist Joe Pass and the alto saxophonist Benny Carter.

One of Mr. Durham’s specialties, with brush sticks softly in play, was scat singing.

Robert Joseph Durham was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 3, 1937. His father was a professional tap dancer, and Bobby was taught to tap at the age of 2. He started playing drums with his junior high school band; by 16 he was playing professionally with a group called the Orioles. His next big gig was with a Marine Corps band, from 1956 to 1959.

Leading his own trio, Mr. Durham performed all over the world. “I played everywhere but Russia, Alaska and Arabia,” he said in a profile in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz.

Mr. Durham’s wife, the former Betsy Perkins, died in 1996. He is survived by two daughters, Valarie Ahrar of Philadelphia and Robbin Carver of Woodbury, N.J.; and four grandchildren.

Gerald Tsai, Jr. --Mutual Fund Wizard

Gerald Tsai, Jr. (March 10, 1929-July 9, 2008)-Chinese-born and oft-married mutual fund manager and financial wizard, who created performance mutual funds in the 1950s and turned a canning products company into the finance company now known as Primerica.

Family, Career, and Personal Highlights

Spouse (s):  Loretta Young, Marlyn Chase, Cynthia Ann Ekberg and Nancy Raeburn (he was briefly engaged to Sharon Bush, ex-wife of Neil Bush, brother of President George W. Bush)       

Children: Christopher, Veronica and Gerald

       

Father: Gerald Tsai Sr.

       

Mother : Ruth Tsai

       

Place of Birth:

Shanghai, China

Education:

College: Wesleyan University (one semester) ,  Boston University, BA- Economics and MA-Economics

Professional Career

1951: Bache & Company (securities analyst)
1952: Fidelity Management and Research Company (securities analyst)

1963--Promoted to Vice-President of Fidelity

1980s: Head of American Can Company (which later became Primerica)
1993:   Delta Life Corporation (Chief Executive)

 

Links and Resources

New York Times Obituary:

Gerald Tsai Jr., a fund manager and financier who pioneered the creation of performance funds in the 1950s and ’60s and later turned a canning company into the financial services giant Primerica, died Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 79.

 

     

William E. Sauro/The New York Times

Gerald Tsai Jr. in 1988.

 

The cause was multiple organ failure, said his son Christopher.

undefined and a subsidiary Mr. Tsai once led eventually became  building blocks of Citigroup. But  Mr. Tsai was perhaps most famous for his skill in building mutual funds.

He was not yet 30 when he started Fidelity Investments’ first aggressive growth fund in 1958, riding it to great success and a large personal fortune. Mr. Tsai spurred the popularity of “momentum investing,” as his funds swiftly moved money from one hot growth stock to another. He joined the Fidelity Management and Research Company in 1952 as a security analyst and, six years later, at the age of 29, started the company’s first aggressive growth fund. By 1963, he was an executive vice president.

At Fidelity, Mr. Tsai “showed himself to be a shrewd and decisive picker of stocks for short-term appreciation,” John Brooks wrote in the book “The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street’s Bullish 60s” in 1973. “So swift and nimble in getting into and out of specific stocks that his relations with them, far from resembling a marriage or even a companionate marriage, were more often like that of a roué with a chorus line.”

Mr. Tsai’s skills as the manager of performance-oriented mutual funds became legendary. In 1965, with the encouragement of his mother, Ruth, Mr. Tsai established the Manhattan Fund, a mutual fund that won him widespread attention. When the fund first offered shares, a modest offering of 2.5 million shares quickly ballooned to a total of 27 million, bringing the fund $247 million in capital and representing what was at the time the biggest offering in investment company history.

Mr. Tsai knew when to buy, and more importantly, when to sell. In 1968, he sold the fund to the CNA Financial Corporation, just as its stellar success — and the bull market that it rode — were starting to wane. Reports at the time said he walked away $30 million richer.

In the 1980s, Mr. Tsai injected energy into the American Can Company, a container production and food packaging business, which was starting to shift toward the more lucrative financial-services sector. American Can in 1982 bought the Associated Madison Companies, a life insurance company where Mr. Tsai had been chairman; he was named executive vice president of financial services. By 1987, when the company changed its name to Primerica to reflect its financial focus, Mr. Tsai was the chief executive, making him the first Chinese-American to lead a Dow Jones industrials company.

A year later, Primerica and Commercial Credit Group, headed by Sanford I. Weill and including the firm that later became known as Citi Smith Barney, were combined in a $1.65 billion deal. Mr. Tsai remained the largest shareholder but handed day-to-day management to Mr. Weill.

In 1993, he re-entered the insurance industry, becoming the chief executive of the Delta Life Corporation.

Gerald Tsai Jr. was born on March 10, 1929, in Shanghai, and moved to the United States 18 years later. He spent one semester at Wesleyan University before transferring to Boston University, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics. He quickly put them to use, becoming a securities analyst at Bache & Company in 1951, before joining Fidelity one year later.

His marriages to Loretta Young, Marlyn Chase, Cynthia Ann Ekberg and Nancy Raeburn ended in divorce. Besides Christopher, he is survived by two other children, Veronica and Gerald, and five grandchildren. In 2006, Mr. Tsai became engaged to marry Sharon Bush, the former wife of President George W. Bush’s brother Neil,  but the marriage was called off in January.

Christopher said Mr. Tsai shared his enthusiasm for the stock market with his children. He encouraged Christopher to learn about the markets at an early age, prompting him to start investing at 12.

“He loved doing transactions.” Christopher said. “He loved the excitement of it.”

Bruce Connor-Beat Artist

Bruce Conner, an artist internationally admired for his haunting, surrealistic sculptures and groundbreaking avant-garde films, died on Monday at his home in San Francisco. He was 74.

From the New York Times

     

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Bruce Conner's "Sound of Two Hand Angel," 1974.

     

His death followed a long illness, said Susan Inglett, his New York dealer.

A key figure in the San Francisco Beat scene in the late 1950s, Mr. Conner first became known for his assemblages made from women’s nylon stockings, parts of furniture, broken dolls, fur, costume jewelry, paint, photographs and candles. These works, created between 1957 and 1964, had the aggressive appearance of avant-garde sculpture but at the same time seemed old and musty, like broken-down junk found in a forgotten attic or props for a scary Hitchcock-like movie. They were a vehement rejection of the optimistic, consumerist spirit of mainstream American society.

In the late 1950s, Mr. Conner also began an influential parallel career as an experimental filmmaker. Under the influence of his friend and fellow filmmaker Stan Brakhage, he created collages of found and new footage.

Mr. Conner’s first and best-known film, “A Movie” (1958), is a 12-minute sequence of clips from old movies, newsreels and other sources set to lushly romantic music. Intermittently funny, erotic, horrifying and tragic, it is a wry commentary on the conventions and clichés of commercial media and a poetic, alternative vision of what filmmaking can be. (Some credit Mr. Conner as a major influence on MTV-style music videos.) In 1991, “A Movie” was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Conner began work on a film called “Report” (1967), which consisted of images and sounds taken from television coverage of the event interspersed with commercial imagery. Another film regarded as an avant-garde classic is “Crossroads,” (1977) in which official footage of a hydrogen bomb explosion on Bikini Atoll replays repeatedly at increasingly slower speeds to mesmerizing and paradoxically beautiful effect.

“America Is Waiting,” (1982) a three-minute film Mr. Conner made in collaboration with the musicians David Byrne and Brian Eno, is one of several of his films that can be seen on YouTube.com.

A restlessly inventive and unpredictable artist who avoided typecasting and irascibly resisted the demands of the commercial gallery system, Mr. Conner worked in a surprising variety of media and styles from the 1960s on. He created intricate mandala drawings using felt-tip pens and, using cut-up old engravings, did collages reminiscent of works by Max Ernst. In the 1970s, he made ghostly photograms of his own body, and from the late 70s on he produced delicate ink-blot drawings — grids of small, Rorschach-like shapes executed by blotting small puddles of ink between the folds of accordion-pleated sheets of paper.

“A lot of things I’ve been involved in I’ve done because nobody else was doing them,” Mr. Conner once told an interviewer for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Bruce Guldner Conner was born in McPherson, Kan., on Nov. 18, 1933. Growing up in Wichita, he was interested in art from an early age. After first attending Wichita University (now Wichita State University) he graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1956 with a bachelor of fine arts degree. He continued his art studies on scholarship at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and had his first solo exhibition, a show of paintings, at the Rienzi Gallery in New York in 1956.

After a semester in New York, Mr. Conner went on scholarship to the University of Colorado, where he met Jean Sandstedt, whom he married in 1957. She survives him, along with his son, Robert, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area; a sister, Joan Conner, and brother, William Nicholas Conner, both of Wichita; and a granddaughter.

Soon after their marriage, he and his wife moved to San Francisco, and Mr. Conner fell in with figures who would later become well-known members of the Beat generation, including the visual artists Wallace Berman, George Herms and Jay DeFeo and the poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure.

Mr. Conner led a peripatetic life in the ’60s. In 1961 and 1962 he, his wife and their young son lived in Mexico for a year. After running out of money, they went to Boston, where he spent time in the company of the LSD gurus Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert before falling out with them. Back in San Francisco at the height of the hippie era, he collaborated in producing light shows for Family Dog at the Avalon Ballroom. From then on, Mr. Conner made San Francisco his home, and while continuing to create art, withdrew from the art world.

Mr. Conner’s works have been included in many major group exhibitions, including “Life on Mars: The 2008 Carnegie International” at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, where the photograms of his body, called “Angels,” are currently on view.

In 2000, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis organized the first retrospective exhibition of Mr. Conner’s work, “2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II,” which traveled to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and other museums.

“I think Bruce will eventually be recognized as one of — perhaps the — most important West Coast artist of his time,” said Peter Boswell, who organized the Walker exhibition and is now the senior curator at the Miami Art Museum. He added that he considered him on a par with Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

“He was an artist who never got his due,” Mr. Boswell said.

Ruth Greenglass--Sister-in-Law of Ethel Rosenberg

Ruth Greenglass, whose damning testimony in the Rosenberg atomic-bomb spy case of the early 1950s helped lead to the execution of her sister-in-law Ethel Rosenberg, died on April 7. She was 84.

From the New York Times

The New York Times

Ruth Greenglass in 1951.

     

Mrs. Greenglass’s testimony was later called into question.

Along with her husband, David Greenglass — Ethel’s brother and a central figure in the case — Mrs. Greenglass had lived in the New York metropolitan area under an assumed name for more than four decades. Her death was revealed in court papers on June 23.

That day, in an unexpected response to a suit by historians, the federal government agreed to release secret grand jury testimony, 57 years after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. The government, however, consented to release the testimony of only 35 of the 45 witnesses; those who are dead or have consented to the release. Mrs. Greenglass was listed as one of the deceased; her death was confirmed by the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and through Social Security records. Mr. Greenglass survives her.

The Rosenberg investigation can be traced to 1945, when a Soviet cipher clerk, Igor Gouzenko, defected to the West and stunned intelligence officials by revealing that the Russians were engaged in extensive spying against their wartime allies. At the time, David Greenglass was an Army sergeant assigned as a machinist to the Manhattan Project, the program to develop the atomic bomb, at Los Alamos, N.M.

When Mr. Rosenberg, an avowed Communist, found out about his brother-in-law’s assignment, he recruited Mr. Greenglass to gather information about the Manhattan Project, including documents, handwritten notes, sketches of the bomb and the names of scientists.

One afternoon in September 1945, in the Rosenberg apartment in Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Mr. Greenglass dictated his notes to someone sitting before a Remington typewriter. Who was sitting at that typewriter, Ethel Rosenberg or Ruth Greenglass? Fifty-seven years after the Rosenberg trial the question remains.

In 1950, after confessing to his role as a spy, Mr. Greenglass agreed to testify against the Rosenbergs. At the time, he had not yet been sentenced.

A main element in the prosecution was the threat of indictment, conviction and possible execution of Ethel Rosenberg as leverage to persuade Julius Rosenberg to confess and to implicate other collaborators. Those collaborators had already been identified, largely from what became known as the Venona transcripts, a trove of intercepted Soviet cables.

But with little more than a week before the trial was to start, on March 6, 1951, the government’s case against Mrs. Rosenberg remained flimsy, lacking evidence of an overt act to justify her conviction, much less her execution.

Prosecutors had been interrogating Mrs. Greenglass since June 1950. In February 1951, she was interviewed again. After reminding her that she was still subject to indictment and that her husband had yet to be sentenced, the prosecutors extracted a recollection from her: that in the fall of 1945, Ethel Rosenberg had typed her brother’s handwritten notes.

Soon after, confronted with his wife’s account, Mr. Greenglass told prosecutors that Mrs. Greenglass had a very good memory and that if that was what she recalled of events six years earlier, she was probably right.

The transcripts of those two crucial interviews have never been released or even located in government files. But at the trial, Mr. Greenglass testified that his sister had done the typing. Called to the stand, Mrs. Greenglass corroborated her husband’s testimony.

In his summation, the chief prosecutor, Irving Saypol, declared: “This description of the atom bomb, destined for delivery to the Soviet Union, was typed up by the defendant Ethel Rosenberg that afternoon at her apartment at 10 Monroe Street. Just so had she, on countless other occasions, sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets.”

On June 19, 1953, the Rosenbergs were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

It may never be determined who actually took that dictation. But in the late 1990s, Sam Roberts, a reporter for The New York Times, interviewed Mr. Greenglass for more than 50 hours while doing research for a book, “The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case” (Random House, 2003).

In the book, Mr. Roberts recounts how Mr. Greenglass acknowledged for the first time that he had lied on the stand and that he had no recollection that his sister had typed his notes.

“I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don’t remember,” Mr. Greenglass told Mr. Roberts.

“You know, I seldom use the word ‘sister’ anymore; I’ve just wiped it out of my mind,” Mr. Greenglass continued, adding: “My wife put her in it. So what am I going to do, call my wife a liar? My wife is my wife.”

Ruth Leah Printz was born on either April 30 or May 1, 1924 (official records differ), the eldest of four children of Max and Tillie Leiter Printz. Growing up on the Lower East Side, she and David Greenglass were neighbors and childhood sweethearts. After graduating with honors from Seward Park High School at 16, she was ready to go to college. But her mother insisted that she learn how to type.

At the time of the Rosenberg trial, Mrs. Greenglass was working as a legal stenographer for Louis J. Lefkowitz, a Republican assemblyman from the Lower East Side, who later became the New York State attorney general. She was fired.

After serving 10 years of a 15-year sentence, Mr. Greenglass was released from federal prison in 1960. In return for her and her husband’s cooperation in the Rosenberg case, Mrs. Greenglass was not indicted.