Month:

Ross Perot’s run at the US presidency in 1992 was the most successful ever by an independent candidate, and the third most successful by a third-party candidate in history. In an attempt to realign American politics, he then set up the Reform Party, which took 8.4% of the vote at the 1996 election. However, its […]

Although he may have been best known to the rank-and-file public as Sandy Thomas in Emmerdale, the newspapers did Freddie Jones a bit of a disservice by just referring to him as a soap star on his death. An am-dram performer until his 30s, he went on to be a respected Shakespearean actor on stage (his […]

Born in Lodz, Poland, Artur Brauner was a student at a local polytechnic when Germany invaded in 1939. He and his family fled together to the Soviet Union, but while they chose to move to Israel in 1946, he opted to make Berlin his new home. There he set up Central Cinema Company, one of […]

Joe Kadenge was one of the first regional superstars of African football, and he was as much a symbol of the New Kenya of the 1960s as President Jomo Kenyatta. Kadenge captained both his national team and club side of AFC Leopards, and went on to manage his country in the early 2000s. In poor […]

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho spent most of his life warning people about impending deaths, so it was only fitting that he flagged up his own for the benefit of the Derby Dead Pool faithful. Sutopo was a civil servant who was named head of PR at the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management in 2010. He […]

Joao Gilberto’s music crystalized the optimism that typified Brazil at the start of the 1960s. Taking inspiration from American soft jazz, artists like Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim gave birth to the genre of “bossa nova” – new beat. With crooner-esque vocals, finger-picked guitars and jazzy harmonies, it was the perfect music for a Brazil […]

Horse-racing journalist, failed bookmaker and perhaps England’s greatest living misogynist, John McCririck, has fallen. From his reputation as a professional rent-a-gob, it may be hard to believe that McCririck was originally a highly respected writer – Harrow-educated, he revolutionised the way track data was broadcast to the BBC in the 1970s and was even named […]

Leon Kossoff was one of the “School of London” painters that shunned the art trends of the mid-20th century and instead took their inspiration from the Old Masters. While he never achieved the fame of some of his contemporaries (Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud), Kossoff had a lengthy and respected career and was still holding exhibitions […]

Arte Johnson didn’t start acting until his mid-20s, and didn’t make any serious headway on TV for another decade. Perhaps his most notable role to a UK audience before his major breakthrough was as Samantha’s mute cousin Edgar in a first series episode of Bewitched. However, he broke through fully in 1968 with a regular role […]

Thanks to his unusual name (he was the son of Italian immigrants), Lee Iacocca had a lengthy legacy as a “funny namedrop” for American comedians. But he achieved so away from those five syllables, and has a claim to be the greatest American CEO of all-time.  Starting with Ford as an entry-level engineer after World […]