Jo Stafford

Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 – July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop music singer and occasional actress, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, the record becoming the first by a female artist to reach number one on the U.K. Singles Chart.

Born in Coalinga, California, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age twelve. While still at high school she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named The Stafford Sisters, who enjoyed moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of The Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform back-up vocals for his orchestra.

Bluebird of happiness

Bluebirds

Three species of blue-headed North American thrushes (Turdidae) occupy the genus Sialia. The most widespread and best-known is the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis), breeding from Canada's prairie provinces to Texas and from the Maritimes to Florida; discrete populations of this species are also found from southeastern Arizona through west Mexico into Guatemala and Nicaragua. The mountain bluebird (S. currucoides) breeds on high-elevation plains from central Alaska to Arizona and New Mexico, and the western bluebird (S. mexicana) inhabits dry coniferous forests from extreme southwestern Canada to Baja California and from the Great Basin south into west Mexico.

Origins of the bluebird as a symbol of happiness

The symbol of a bluebird as the harbinger of happiness is found in many cultures and may date back thousands of years. One of the oldest examples (found on oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, 1766-1122 BC) is from pre-modern China, where a blue bird (qingniao) was the messenger bird of Xi Wangmu, the 'Queen Mother of the West' who began life as a fearsome goddess and Immortal. By the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) she had evolved into a Daoist fairy queen and the protector/patron of "singing girls, dead women, novices, nuns, adepts and priestesses...women [who] stood outside the roles prescribed for women in the traditional Chinese family". Depictions of Xi Wangmu often include a bird—the birds in the earliest depictions are difficult to identify, and by the Tang Dynasty, most of the birds appear in a circle, often with three legs, as a symbol of the sun.

Bluebird of Happiness (song)

"Bluebird of Happiness" is a song composed in 1934 by Sandor Harmati, with words by Edward Heyman and additional lyrics by Harry Parr-Davies.

Harmati wrote the song for his friend, the tenor Jan Peerce, the leading singer at Radio City Music Hall. Peerce recorded it three times: in 1936, under the name Paul Robinson, with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra conducted by Ernö Rapée; on 7 June 1945, under his own name, with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sylvan Levin; and in 1958 (the Las Vegas version) with Joe Reisman and his Orchestra. Each version included slight variations in the spoken recitative, which was accompanied by Boldi's "Chanson Bohemienne", rather than Harmati's music.

The 1945 recording became a worldwide hit for Peerce, outselling all his many operatic recordings, and becoming second only to Enrico Caruso's recording of George M. Cohan's "Over There" among the best-selling records made by opera and concert singers. The 1958 version was the one Peerce used in later live performances.

Gordon MacRae

Gordon MacRae (March 12, 1921 – January 24, 1986) was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), and playing Bill Sherman in On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By The Light of the Silvery Moon (1953).

Early life

Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange in Essex County in northeastern New Jersey, MacRae graduated in 1940 from Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and he thereafter served as a navigator in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Prior to this, he attended Nottingham High School in Syracuse, New York.

Career

He made his Broadway debut in 1942, acquiring his first recording contract soon afterwards. Many of his hit recordings were made with Jo Stafford. It was in 1948 that he appeared in his first film, The Big Punch, a drama about boxing. He soon began an on-screen partnership with Doris Day and appeared with her in several films.

In 1950, he starred with Doris Day in "Tea for Two" (a reworking of "No, No, Nanette"), then in 1951, he starred again with Doris Day in On Moonlight Bay, followed by the 1953 sequel By the Light of the Silvery Moon. That same year, he also starred opposite Kathryn Grayson in the third film version of The Desert Song. This was followed by leading roles in two major films of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), both films opposite Shirley Jones.

Stafford Gordon

Stafford Gordon is a British actor.

Gordon has played various character roles in British television series such as Crown Court, Minder, Prime Suspect and The Bill. His longest running role was as Company Sergeant Major Gilby in all three series of Spearhead (1979–1981).

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Stafford

Coordinates: 52°48′24″N 2°07′02″W / 52.8066°N 2.1171°W / 52.8066; -2.1171

Stafford (/ˈstæfəd/) is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It lies approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of Wolverhampton, 18 miles (29 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Birmingham. The population in 2001 was 63,681 and that of the wider borough of Stafford 122,000, the fourth largest in the county after Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.

History

Stafford means 'ford' by a 'staithe' (landing place). The original settlement was on dry sand and gravel peninsula that provided a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent. There is still a large area of marshland northwest of the town, which has always been subject to flooding, such as in 1947, 2000 and 2007.

It is thought Stafford was founded in about 700 AD by a Mercian prince called Bertelin who, according to legend, established a hermitage on the peninsula named Betheney or Bethnei. Until recently it was thought that the remains of a wooden preaching cross from this time had been found under the remains of St Bertelin's chapel, next to the later collegiate Church of St Mary in the centre of the town. Recent re-examination of the evidence shows this was a misinterpretation – it was a tree trunk coffin placed centrally in the first, timber, chapel at around the time Æthelflæd founded the burh, in 913 AD. The tree trunk coffin may have been placed there as an object of commemoration or veneration of St Bertelin.

List of Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names

Forty-one individuals who played professional baseball at the major league level lack identified given names. Identification of players remains difficult due to a lack of information; a Brooklyn, New York directory, for instance, lists more than 30 men that could be the professional player "Stoddard". Possible mistakes in reading box scores from the 19th century could have also led to players without given names: "Eland", for example, could be another player from the Baltimore Marylands roster whose name was simply misread. Four of the 41, McBride, Stafford, Sterling, and Sweigert, were local players added to the Philadelphia Athletics team by manager Bill Sharsig for Philadelphia's last game of the season against the Syracuse Stars on October 12, 1890. Sterling pitched five innings for the Athletics and conceded 12 runs. McBride, Philadelphia's center fielder, and Stafford, the team's right fielder, both failed to reach base, but left fielder Sweigert reached base on a walk and stole a base. Society for American Baseball Research writer Bill Carle "doubt[s] we will ever be able to identify them".