- Jack Benny
Jack Benny (February 14 1894 in Chicago, Illinois - December 26 1974 in Beverly Hills, California), born Benjamin Kubelsky, was an American comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor. He was one of the biggest stars in classic American radio and was also a major television personality. Benny was renowned for his flawless comic timing and (especially) his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, … - Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE (May 29 1903 - July 27 2003), was an English-born American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for U.S. Military personnel, well known for his good natured humor and career longevity. - Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 - October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death in 1977. One of the first multi-media stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. - Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 - June 22, 1969) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress and singer, best known for her role as Dorothy Gale from "The Wizard of Oz". Garland's singing voice had a natural vibrato, which she was able to maintain at an extremely low volume. The effects which she was able to project enabled her to convey a wide range of emotion when she interpreted a song. - Al Jolson
Al Jolson was a highly acclaimed American singer, comedian and actor of Jewish heritage whose career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950. He was one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century whose influence extended to other popular performers, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Eddie Fisher, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. - Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (4 August, 1901 - July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo and Pops, was an American jazz musician. Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative performer whose inspired improvised soloing was the main influence for a fundamental change in jazz, shifting its focus from collective melodic playing, often arranged in one way or another, to the solo player and improvised soloing. One of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, … - Will Rogers
William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 - August 15, 1935) was an American comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, and actor. He has been named Oklahoma's favorite son. - Mae West
Mae West (August 17, 1893 - November 22, 1980) was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol. Famous for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the legitimate stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become renowned as a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry. One of the most controversial stars of her day, West encountered many problems including censorship. - Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr. KBE (April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977), better known as Charlie Chaplin, was an English comedy actor. Chaplin became one of the most famous performers as well as a notable director and musician in the early to mid Hollywood cinema era. He is considered to be one of the finest mimes and clowns ever caught on film and has greatly influenced performers in this field. - George Burns
George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum (January 20 1896 - March 9 1996) to a Jewish family, was an American comedian and actor. His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his equally legendary wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Enjoying a remarkable career resurrection that began at age 79, … - Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (January 31, 1892 - October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, singer, actor, songwriter. Known to Broadway, radio and early television audiences as Banjo Eyes, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing antics about his wife Ida and five children. - Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 - June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of seventy-six years, during which he made thirty-one musical films. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films that revolutionized the genre. - Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were a popular team of sibling comedians who appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film, and television. - Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton (born Joseph Frank Keaton, October 4, 1895 - February 1, 1966) was an American silent film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face" (referencing the Nathaniel Hawthorne story about the "Old Man of the Mountain"). His career as a performer and director is widely regarded to be among the most innovative and important work in the history of cinema. - Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was an African American jazz composer, pianist, and band leader who has been one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music. As a composer and a band leader especially, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. A man of suave demeanor and puckish wit that masked occasional brusqueness, … - Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 - April 25, 1995) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress and singer. In a film career spanning fifty years she made a total of seventy-three films, and is now principally celebrated for her role as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. - George Gershwin
George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 - July 11, 1937) was an American composer. He wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works in collaboration with his elder brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin composed both for Broadway and for the classical concert hall. He also wrote popular songs with success. Many of his compositions have been used on television and in numerous films, and many became jazz standards. - Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran Kelly, better known as Gene Kelly, was an American dancer, actor, singer, director, producer, and choreographer. Kelly was a major exponent of 20th century filmed dance, known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks and the likeable characters that he played on screen. Although he is probably best known today for his performance in "Singin' in the Rain", … - Ma Rainey
Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey, was one of the earliest known professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues. She did much to develop and popularize the form and was an important influence on younger blues women, such as Bessie Smith, and their careers. Born in Georgia or Alabama, there remains debate. - James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American film actor who won acclaim for a wide variety of roles and won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1942 for his role in "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Like James Stewart, Cagney became so familiar to audiences that they usually referred to him as "Jimmy" Cagney — a billing never found on any of his films. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Cagney eighth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time. - Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 - September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist, one of the most prodigious and famous American songwriters in history. Berlin was one of the few Tin Pan Alley/Broadway songwriters who wrote both lyrics and music for his songs. Although he never learned to read music beyond a rudimentary level, he composed over 3,000 songs, many of which ("God Bless America", "White Christmas", "Alexander's Ragtime Band", … - Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith (July, 1892 or April, 1894 - September 26, 1937) was the most popular and successful female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, and a strong influence on subsequent generations, including Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Janis Joplin. - Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr. on September 23, 1920), is an American film actor and musician whose career began in 1922 at seventeen months and has continued through 2007. - Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 - August 19, 1977), was an American comedian, working both with his siblings, the Marx Brothers, and on his own. - Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis (born on March 16, 1926, according to most sources), is an American comedian, actor, film producer, writer and director known for his slapstick humor and his charity fund-raising telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Jerry Lewis has won many prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awards from The American Comedy Awards, The Golden Camera, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, The Venice Film Festival and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. - Fred Allen
Fred Allen (born John Florence Sullivan on May 31 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, died March 17 1956 in New York City) was an American comedian whose absurdist, pointed radio show (1934–1949) made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio. His best-remembered gag may be his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny. - Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker (January 13, 1884-February 9, 1966) was a singer and comedian, one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first third of the 20th century. She was born Sonia Kalish to a Jewish family in Tsarist Russia. Her family emigrated to the United States when she was an infant, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. The family changed its name to Abuza, and her parents opened a restaurant. - Cary Grant
Archibald Alec Leach, better known by his screen name, Cary Grant, was an English film actor. With his distinctive Mid-Atlantic accent, he was noted as perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, handsome, witty and charming. He was named the second Greatest Male Star of All Time of American cinema (after Humphrey Bogart) by the American Film Institute. - Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante, better known as Jimmy Durante or Schnozzle (Snozzle) Durante, (February 10, 1893 - January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor, whose distinctive gravel delivery, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, … - W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields (January 29, 1880 - December 25, 1946) was an American juggler, comedian, and actor. Fields created one of the great American comic personas of the first half of the 20th century-a misanthrope who teetered on the edge of buffoonery but never quite fell in, an egotist blind to his own failings, a charming drunk; and a man who hated children, dogs, and women, unless they were the wrong sort of women. - Count Basie
William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 - April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Commonly regarded as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his time, Basie led his popular groups for almost fifty years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including saxophonist Lester Young and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. - George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan (July 3, 1878 - November 5, 1942) was a United States entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, director, and producer of Irish descent. Known as "the man who owned Broadway" in the decade before World War I, he is considered the father of American musical comedy. - Tony Pastor
Antonio Pastor (May 28, 1837-August 26, 1908) was a variety performer and theatre owner who became one of the founding forces behind American vaudeville in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The strongest elements of his entertainments were an almost jingoistic brand of United States patriotism and a strong commitment to attracting a mixed-gender audience, the latter being something revolutionary in the male-oriented variety halls of the mid-century. - Milton Berle
Milton Berle (July 12, 1908 - March 27, 2002) was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger. As the manic host of NBC's "Texaco Star Theater" (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's golden age. - Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 - March 4, 1922) was the pre-eminent Black entertainer of his era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920. Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American music. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were an accepted part of life, he became the first black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, … - Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 - June 15, 1996), also known as "Lady Ella" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century. With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, near faultless phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. - Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice (October 29 1891 - May 29 1951) was a popular and influential American comedian, singer, theatre and film actress and entertainer, remembered best for her many stage, radio and film appearances and her recordings. She was the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, "The Baby Snooks Show". In the decade following her death, she was portrayed on stage and film by Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl". - Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee (also known as Rose Louise Hovick and Louise Hovick) (February 9, 1911 or 1914 - April 26, 1970) was an American actress and burlesque entertainer, whose 1957 memoir, which included a scathing portrait of her domineering mother, was made into the stage musical and film "Gypsy". - W. C. Handy
William Christopher Handy (November 16 1873 - March 28 1958) was a blues composer and musician, often known as "the Father of the Blues." W. C. Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the style of music that is distinctively American, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form not only because he was able to notate his music for publication and hence, posterity, … - Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith (May 26, 1883 - September 16, 1946) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, and appeared in several motion pictures late in her career. As a vaudeville singer she performed a number of styles including jazz and blues. She entered blues history by being the first African American to make vocal blues recordings in 1920. Smith was born Mamie Robinson in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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