- Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an Academy Award-nominated American singer-songwriter and musician. His primary instrument was the guitar, but he was also proficient at piano, clarinet, bass, harmonica and drums. Smith had a distinctive vocal style characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and use of multi-tracking to create vocal harmonies. Although Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and died in Los Angeles, California, … - Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome Blanc was a prolific American voice actor, performing on radio, in television commercials, and most famously, in hundreds of theatrical animated shorts for Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation--and later for Hanna-Barbera television productions. He is regarded as one of the most gifted and influential persons in his field, providing the definitive voices for iconic characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, … - Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (IPA: [EpE'lEnEk])[1] (born February 21, 1962) is an American satirical novelist and freelance journalist of Ukrainian ancestry born in Pasco, Washington. The press release for his latest book, Rant, states he is now living in Vancouver, Washington. He is best known for the award-winning novel, "Fight Club," which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher . - China Forbes
China Forbes is an American singer and songwriter, and the lead singer of Pink Martini. Born April 29, 1970 and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she comes from a multiracial background. Her father is Cameron D. Forbes and her mother is Peggy Woodford Forbes. She also has a sister, Maya C. Forbes. She attended Phillips Exeter Academy ('88), then studied visual arts at Harvard University ('92), where she met fellow student Thomas M Lauderdale, … - Matthew Abram Groening
Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Matt Groening did not take a particular interest in school, which is what originaly turned him towards drawing. In the mid-1980' s, Matt Groening moved to Los... ... Matt Groening created The Simpsons. Matt Groening created Futurama. The Simpsons is one of the greatest shows ever. Furturama is one of the greatest shows ever. Because of this Simpsons fact Matt Groening is one of the all-time greats. Because of... - James Beard
James Beard (May 5, 1903-January 21, 1985) was an American chef and food writer. James Beard is recognized by many as the father of American gastronomy. Throughout his life, he pursued and advocated the highest standards, and served as a mentor to emerging talents in the field of the culinary arts. - Steve Jones
Stephen (Steve) Howard "Snapper" Jones (born October 17 1942, in Alexandria, Louisiana) is one of the most esteemed and watched National Basketball Association (NBA) television analysts. After serving as an analyst on "The NBA on NBC" for 13 years, Jones now works in that same position for ABC, ESPN, and NBATV. Jones' broadcasting career began in 1976 (the season after he retired as a player with the Portland Trail Blazers), … - Thomas M. Lauderdale
Thomas M. Lauderdale was born in 1970 and adopted into a family that included two black siblings and an Iranian brother. He is of "uncertain" Asian heritage. The family lived first on a rural Indiana plant nursery, where his father was a gardener. When Thomas was twelve, his father came out of the closet. The family relocated to Portland, Oregon. His parents divorced, but remained on friendly terms, his father later performing the ceremony when his former wife remarried. - Todd Snider
Todd Daniel Snider is a singer-songwriter born October 11, 1966 in Portland, Oregon. Best known for his wry humor, Snider has been a fixture on the Americana, alt-country, and folk scene since his debut on MCA, entitled "Songs for the Daily Planet", named after The Daily Planet bar where Snider used to play regularly in Memphis. On that album were the minor hits "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues", … - John Reed
John "Jack" Silas Reed (October 22, 1887 - October 19, 1920) was an American journalist, poet, and communist activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, "Ten Days that Shook the World". He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant. Reed and Bryant were the subjects of the film "Reds" (1981), directed by Warren Beatty. - Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Brownstein (born September 27 1974), is an American musician and actress. She is best known for being a guitarist and vocalist in the currently on hiatus Portland, Oregon-based band Sleater-Kinney. Brownstein grew up in Redmond, Washington. After attending Western Washington University for a short time, she transferred to Evergreen State College and graduated with a degree in Sociolinguistics in 1997. - Tom Potter
Tom Potter is the Mayor of the city of Portland, Oregon in the United States. He was elected in 2004, and his term ends in 2008. He was Portland's police chief in the early 1990s. On November 2, 2004, Potter defeated Portland City Commissioner Jim Francesconi in the non-partisan Portland mayoral race. Potter was inaugurated on January 3, 2005, succeeding Mayor Vera Katz (who had served for three terms, but did not run for a fourth.) Francesconi, … - Miranda July
Miranda July (born February 15, 1974) is a performance artist, musician, writer, actress and film director. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, after having lived for many years in Portland, Oregon. Born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger, she works under the surname of "July," which can be traced to a character in a short story by a high-school friend. She was born in Barre, Vermont, the daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. - Tonya Harding
Tonya Maxine Harding (born November 12, 1970) is an American former figure skater. Despite a tough childhood in an unstable family, as well as being plagued by asthma (aggravated by smoking), she became an elite figure skater. She won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships twice and placed second in the 1991 World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition. - Richard Meltzer
Richard Meltzer (born May 11, 1945) was one of the earliest rock music critics. His first book was "The Aesthetics of Rock", which evolved out of his undergraduate studies in Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and graduate studies at Yale University. At school, he developed a reputation as something of a prankster, although his actions were closer to the spirit of performance art happenings promoted by one of his professors, Allan Kaprow, … - Joe Hill
Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and also known as Joseph Hillström was a radical songwriter, labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. He was executed for murder after a controversial trial. After his death, he became the subject of a folksong. - Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 - August 19, 1994) was an American quantum chemist and biochemist. He was also acknowledged as a crystallographer, molecular biologist, and medical researcher. Pauling is widely regarded as the premier chemist of the twentieth century. He pioneered the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, and in 1954 was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work describing the nature of chemical bonds. - Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born October 21, 1929) is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, most notably in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She was first published in the 1960s. Her works explore Taoist, anarchist, feminist, psychological and sociological themes. She has received several Hugo and Nebula awards, … - Alex Ross
Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross is an American comic book painter, illustrator and plotter, acclaimed for the photorealism of his work. Ross is known for his love of the vintage looks of classic characters and the more mythic elements of the superheroes. In the past ten years, Ross has done much work for the industry’s two largest and most historically important publishing houses, Marvel and DC Comics, but Ross is also the co-creator of "Astro City", … - Ward Cunningham
Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is the American computer programmer who invented the wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham (commonly known by its domain name, c2.com), on March 25, 1995, as an add-on to the Portland Pattern Repository. He currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon. - Art Alexakis
Art Alexakis (born Arthur Paul Alexakis on April 12, 1962) is the singer/guitarist and songwriter of the rock band Everclear. He was born in Los Angeles, California. - John Harris
John Thomas Harris (born September 13, 1954) is a former Major League Baseball player. His first MLB appearance was with the California Angels on September 26, 1979. Harris was born in Portland, Oregon. He attended Lubbock Christian University. He was chosen in the 29th round of the 1976 Major League Baseball draft. He played in the major leagues from 1979 until October 1981 - all with the California Angels. - Katherine Dunn
Katherine Dunn is a best-selling novelist, journalist, voice artist, radio personality, book reviewer, and poet from Portland, Oregon. Dunn was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1945. She went to high school in Tigard, Oregon, and later attended Reed College in Portland. Following her time at Reed, Ms. Dunn spent several years in Europe traveling. While in Ireland, she had a child, and five years later she returned with her son to the United States. - Don Johnson
Donald Roy Johnson (born November 12, 1926 in Portland, Oregon) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. The 6'3", 200 lb. right-hander was signed by the New York Yankees before the 1944 season, and he played for the Yankees (1947, 1950), St. Louis Browns (1950-1951), Washington Senators (1951-1952), Chicago White Sox (1954), Baltimore Orioles (1955), and San Francisco Giants (1958). Johnson made his major league debut on April 20, 1947, … - Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Clifford Diebenkorn, Jr. was a well-known 20th century American painter. Diebenkorn was born in Portland, Oregon; his family moved to San Francisco, California when he was two. In 1940, Diebenkorn entered Stanford University. At first, he painted and drew in a representational style that was in a large part influenced by Edward Hopper. However, during the late 1940s and early 1950s he lived and worked in various places: New York City, Woodstock, New York, … - Henry F. Phillips
Henry F. Phillips (1890 - 1958) was a U.S. businessman from Portland, Oregon, and inventor of the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver and founder of Phillips Electronics Ltd. His inventions built on an earlier concept credited to the inventor J. P. Thompson. - Glen Moore
Glen Moore (born October 28, 1941 in Portland, Oregon) is a jazz bassist who occasionally performs on piano, flute and violin. His performing career began at age 14 with the "Young Oregonians" in Portland, Oregon where he met and played with native American saxophonist, Jim Pepper. He graduated with a degree in History and Literature from the University of Oregon. His formal bass instruction started after college with Jerome Magil in Portland, … - Paul Delay
Paul Joseph deLay (b. January 31 1952, Portland, Oregon - d. March 7 2007, Portland, Oregon), was an American blues vocalist and harmonicist. DeLay's musical career started in the early 1970s with a band called "Brown Sugar", which played numerous West Coast gigs. In 1976, he and guitarist Jim Mesi formed the Paul deLay Blues Band, which performed well into the 1980s. The band also recorded several albums during that time. - Kevin Burke
Open House is an acoustic world music phenomenon. Drawing strength from the diversity of its musicians, the group takes full advantage of its varied instrumentation, deftly genre-jumping through an assortment of Celtic, American traditional and eastern European settings. Legendary Irish fiddler Kevin Burke slips easily amongst jigs, reels... more - Beverly Cleary
Beverly Cleary (born April 12, 1916) is the author of over 30 books for young adults and children. Her characters are normal children facing challenges that many of us face growing up, and her stories are liberally laced with humour. Some of her best known and loved characters are Ramona Quimby and her sister Beatrice ("Beezus"), Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse, and Ribsy. - Blake Nelson
Blake Nelson is an author of adult and children's books. He grew up in Portland, Oregon. He went to Wesleyan University and New York University. He began his career writing short humor pieces for Details Magazine in the mid-nineties. These articles, with titles like "How to Date a Feminist" and "How to Live on $3600 a year", explored the slacker west coast lifestyle. - Sally Struthers
Sally Ann Struthers (born July 28, 1948, Portland, Oregon) is an American actress and spokesperson, best known for playing Gloria Stivic; the daughter of Archie and Edith Bunker on "All in the Family". - Craig Thompson
Craig Ringwalt Thompson is a graphic novelist best known for his 2003 work "Blankets". He has quickly risen to the top ranks of American cartoonists in both popularity and critical esteem. In mock-jealousy, Eddie Campbell once expressed a temptation to break Thompson's fingers ("The Comics Journal", issue 266). He is significantly influenced by French comics ("bandes-dessinées") and cartoonists, such as Edmond Baudoin, Charles Berberian, Blutch, … - Page Hamilton
Page Nye Hamilton (born May 18, 1960 in Portland, Oregon) is a singer, guitarist and record producer, mostly noted for his work with alternative metal band Helmet. Most of his work has been in the heavy metal or hard rock styles, but Hamilton has an experimentalist streak, and has worked in other genres. - Joey Harrington
John Joseph "Joey" Harrington Jr. (born October 21, 1978 in Portland, Oregon) is an American football quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. He was recently signed to be a backup to Michael Vick following the trade of Matt Schaub. Many sports analysts have considered him one of the biggest draft busts in recent NFL history after being picked with the third pick in the 2002 NFL draft. - Phillip Margolin
Phillip Margolin (born in 1944 in New York, New York) is a writer of legal thrillers. - Richie Sexson
Richmond Lockwood Sexson (born December 29, 1974 in Portland, Oregon) is an American baseball player who currently plays for the Seattle Mariners. Standing at 6 feet 8 inches tall he is one of the tallest players today in MLB - Erik Sten
Erik Sten (b. October 1967 in New Haven, Connecticut) is a City Commissioner in Portland, Oregon, United States. He was first elected to Commissioner Position No. 2 in 1996, in a campaign featuring hundreds of volunteers, defeating Chuck Duffy. He ran successful campaigns for re-election in 1998, 2002, and 2006. Sten was raised in Portland where he attended Irvington Elementary School, Fernwood Middle School, and Grant High School. - William Stafford
William Edgar Stafford (January 17, 1914 - August 28, 1993) was an American poet and pacifist, and the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He and his writings are sometimes identified with the Pacific Northwest. - John Callahan
John Callahan (born 1951 in Portland, Oregon), is a cartoonist, artist, and musician noted for dealing with macabre subjects and physical disabilities.
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