Born in southern California, Kline grew up with a passion for surfing. But his father was Benjamin H. Kline (1894-1974), an early and prolific cinematographer and film director (a cinematographer is the director of photography for a film or TV show). One uncle was Sol Halperin (1902-1977), special effects artist and cinematographer. And another uncle … Read more
From This is True for 12 August 2018
An Armenian born in Turkey, Tchakarian’s family fled the Armenian Genocide by the Ottomans, first to Bulgaria and then France. Tchakarian found work as a tailor, but that was interrupted by World War II; he served in the French Army, but was demobilized when France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940. But Tchakarian kept fighting … Read more
From This is True for 5 August 2018
Born in Los Angeles, Grindstaff was schooled at the California Institute of the Arts, but his career plans were interrupted by the Korean War: he served in a U.S. Army combat unit. Once back, his brother, who worked in radio, suggested he go to Hollywood, and he quickly found work as a sound editor and … Read more
From This is True for 29 July 2018
Born in England, Blake was mesmerized by Audrey Hepburn in the 1957 film Funny Face. Well, not so much Hepburn herself, but her fabulous fashions, which were designed by Givenchy. Blake, as a teen, decided to become a costume designer. She clearly had an aptitude for it: she attended Manchester’s Regional College of Art & Design, … Read more
From This is True for 22 July 2018
Born May Tsang in Oakland, Calif., Sing, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, got a job as a teen, waitressing at a Chinese nightclub in San Francisco, Forbidden City. But she was more interested in the nightclub performers, and in the 1940s switched to a new job as a chorus girl. She was later promoted to … Read more
From This is True for 15 July 2018
A medical doctor, Carlsson was a professor of pharmacology at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg. More specifically, Carlsson was a neuropharmacologist — interested in how neurotransmitters affected the brain and health in general. In 1957, Kathleen Montagu proved that dopamine was present in human brains; Carlsson took that a step farther, disproving the theory that dopamine … Read more
From This is True for 8 July 2018
After studying sociology at Harvard, and then getting a master’s in architecture at Yale University, Adams apprenticed with an architecture firm for two years before settling on her calling: she was a space architect, and got her dream job in the late 1990s working on NASA projects. It’s a weird environment for designers, since there’s … Read more
From This is True for 1 July 2018
Born on the Fourth of July, Hanabi-ko (Japanese for “Fireworks child”) was better known as Koko — a western lowland gorilla born at the San Francisco Zoo. While very young, the female gorilla was stricken with a serious illness, and put into the care of Francine “Penny” Patterson, who was studying for her doctorate in … Read more
From This is True for 24 June 2018
He switched careers to help an actor he discovered: Al Pachino.
From This is True for 17 June 2018
Starting in the world of a wildly mixed heritage — he was born in Latvia to a father from a Baltic German noble family and a Scottish mother — von Tiesenhausen studied engineering in Berlin, and was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the eastern front. But Germany decided his engineering was a better … Read more
From This is True for 10 June 2018