After attending Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast, Ghana, Nkansah became a teacher. Political leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who later became the first president of Ghana, directed that the Gold Coast Police Force (now Ghana Police Service) start recruiting women as officers, and on September 1, 1952, Nkansah was not only the first of … Read more
From This is True for 28 February 2021
Born to a singer/performer mother, which Meyers said gave him an appreciation for art, and an Indianapolis 500 competitor father, which he said gave him an appreciation for cars, after a stint in the U.S. Navy Meyers got into building …boats. He was also a Southern California surfer, and wanted a vehicle to get him … Read more
From This is True for 21 February 2021
A painter, Morrill first worked at a New York City ad agency. “The ad agency was unbearable,” she said, “so I quit.” Her next idea: call book publishers to see if they needed a cover artist. It worked: she soon was commissioned to paint the cover for Isobel, a 1977 Jane Parkhurst romance. If you can find … Read more
From This is True for 14 February 2021
Raised in Los Angeles, Tarses was the daughter of successful TV writer and producer Jay Tarses (The Bob Newhart Show, Buffalo Bill, The Carol Burnett Show, among others), which clearly influenced her own career choice. After graduating Williams College with a degree in Theater, she took a job as the assistant to the casting director … Read more
From This is True for 7 February 2021
Educated by Jesuits, John David Power graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1953, and joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He spent much of his time on the icebreaker USCGC Eastwind in the Arctic and Antarctic, and was briefly featured in a Disney film, Men Against the Arctic. After discharge, Power earned an MBA at Wharton … Read more
From This is True for 31 January 2021
At the age of 8, Wilson saw a live variety show. “I don’t remember anything about what any of the other performers did,” Wilson said later, “but I do remember just about everything in the seven or eight minutes Tommy Martin was on stage.” He decided right then and there he wanted to be a … Read more
From This is True for 24 January 2021
Born in Denver, Colo., at 8 years old Baer saw Disney’s animated Peter Pan, and vowed that someday, he’d work for Disney. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute (which Roy and Walt Disney helped merge with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to establish the California Institute of the Arts, or “Calarts”), and in 1970 took … Read more
From This is True for 17 January 2021
Michael Apted. Born in Buckinghamshire, England, when Apted graduated from Cambridge University, he got a temporary job as a trainee for Granada Television in Manchester, where he worked as a researcher for director Paul Almond. One of his first projects: choose fourteen 7-year-old children for a documentary to explore the Jesuit motto, “Give me a … Read more
From This is True for 10 January 2021
A writer, Link became friends with fellow student Richard Levinson on their first day of junior high school in Philadelphia. Their link wasn’t writing: they both were fond of magic, and other students insisted that they meet. But indeed they started writing together soon afterward. While students at the University of Pennsylvania, they sold their … Read more
From This is True for 3 January 2021
Born in Kansas City, Mo., at age 14 Gunn attended a talk given by H.G. Wells — a four-time Nobel Prize in Literature nominee known best for his science fiction novels The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). That set him on his own path … Read more
From This is True for 27 December 2020