Many famous stars, politicians, and pop cultural heroes were born or spent a great deal of time in Colorado, and on Colfax Avenue. I proposed to the City Council the idea of turning Colfax Avenue into a Colorado Walk of Fame, much like Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, where each resident of note would get a star; hopefully it happens... Here are suggestions for the first inductees:
Broncos Quarterback John Elway, Chauncey Billups (born in Denver, point guard and team captain for the Detroit Pistons, 2004 NBA Champions), country music legend Chet Atkins (once lived in the
western Denver suburbs near Colfax Avenue and Simms before becoming a
major operative in the Nashville music scene. Chet's brother, Jimmy, was a longtime KOA radio program director in Denver), the Unsinkable Molly Brown (activist, social reformer, survived the sinking of the Titanic), Singer Judy Collins (attended East High School), Pat Hingle (lived in Denver, Commissioner Gordon in Batman movies), Neal Cassady (Beat hero, honed his writing skills at East High School), Jack Kerouac (once owned a house in Lakewood, CO), Don Cheadle (nominated for a 2005 Academy Award for his portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda), Dianne Reeves (received a Grammy Award of "Best jazz vocal album" for A Little Moonlight in 2004), Ruth Handler (went to East High School, invented the Barbie doll in 1959 and co-founded the Mattel Toy Company), Hattie McDaniel
(America's first ever black Academy Award winner for Best Supporting
Actress, playing Scarlet's servant in the 1939 epic film Gone With the
Wind), Peter O'Fallon (Hollywood film director, who was publicized for the film Suicide Kings in 1998), Spanky (of Our Gang, the early-1900's comedy serial reportedly lived in Denver), Dean Reed ("The Red Elvis", performer, activist, born in Lakewood), Jack Earle (once billed as "The World's Tallest Man"), legendary guitarist Tommy Bolin, folk singer John Denver, India.Arie, The Fray (nominated for two Grammy Awards),
DeVotchKa (nominated for a Grammy Award), David Miller (member of international opera sensation, Il Divo), actor/comedian T.J. Miller, musician/actor Chuck E. Weiss, big band leader Glenn Miller, actress Debra Paget (born in Denver, starred with Elvis Presley in the film "Love Me Tender"), one-time Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir, and Sue Lyon
(best-known for her role in the 1962 movie "Lolita,", but it was only a
few years later that she was living at the Bugs Bunny Motel at 6218 W.
Colfax Ave. It is rumored that she threatened to throw herself out of a
window, but the motel is only one-story).
Denver also has many other claims to rock and roll fame: Led Zeppelin's first ever American tour date at the Denver Auditorium, Queen's first ever American tour date at Regis College and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's last ever appearance together at the Denver Pop Festival at Mile High Stadium in 1969.
OTHER NOMINEES:
Paul Whiteman (born in Denver, Colorado on March 28, 1890) was a popular American
orchestral leader. He started out as a classical violinist and violist,
and played viola in the Denver Symphony Orchestra from 1907 and in the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1914.
He then started leading a jazz-influenced dance band which became
locally popular in San Francisco, California in 1918. In 1920 he moved
his band to New York City where they started making recordings for
Victor Records which propelled Whiteman and his band to national
prominence. Whiteman became the most popular band leader of the decade.
In the late 1920s he recorded for Columbia Records. His band was one of
the most successful in history. Their first hit, "Whispering," sold two
million copies in 1920, about one for every record player in the
country. It was the first of more than 20 number-one hits that the band
would record in the Twenties.
In the 1920s and early 1930s Whiteman was dubbed (self proclaimed) "The
King of Jazz". He recorded Hoagy Carmichael singing and playing Washboard
Blues to the accompaniment of his orchestra in 1926.
While today most fans of jazz consider improvisation to be essential to
the musical style, Whiteman thought the music could be improved by
scoring the best of it. While modern revisionists might look back &
say "that wasn't the True Jazz", his notions were critically popular and
commercially successful at the time, and Whiteman's music was often the
first jazz of any form that some people heard.
Duke Ellington wrote in his autobiography: "Paul Whiteman was known as
the King of Jazz, and no one as yet has come near carrying that title
with more certainty and dignity."
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| Paul Whiteman |
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Whiteman commissioned George Gershwin's Rhapsody in
Blue, which was premiered by Whiteman's Orchestra with Gershwin at the
piano in 1924. Another familiar piece in Whiteman's repertoire: Grand
Canyon Suite, by Ferde Grof (much of which was used in the score of A
Christmas Story).
Whiteman appreciated jazz musicians and hired many of the best jazz men
for his band, including Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, Joe Venuti,
Eddie Lang, Steve Brown, Mike Pingitore, Gussie Mueller, Jack Teagarden,
and Bunny Berigan. Whiteman gave them constant chances to improvise,
paid them top salaries and encouraged them to make small band jam
recordings on the side.
Paul Whiteman was primarily responsible for revolutionizing the dance
orchestra and dance music after World War I. Prior to that time, dances
were played by military bands, string ensembles, or small combinations.
Working in 1918-19 with arranger Ferde Grof and in parallel with fellow
San Francisco bandleader Art Hickman, Whiteman introduced the saxophone
section as musical unit of equal weight with the brass. This set a
standard for instrumentation that defined the dance orchestra, and
remains in big bands to this day.
Before Whiteman, musical arrangements
were very cut-and-dried, with much repetition. Whiteman and Grof
introduced arrangements that instead of repeating, changed keys,
textures and rhythms over their course, much like symphonic music. This
innovation, combined with the jazz elements mentioned above, plus his
insistence on using top notch, concert-calibre musicians, made Paul
Whiteman's orchestra a vanguard force that changed the face of popular
music in the 1920s.
Whiteman was also one of the greatest of all talent scouts. For over 30
years, he sought out and encouraged musicians, vocalists, composers,
arrangers and entertainers who looked promising. It is worth repeating
that Whiteman not only premiered George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in
1924, but commissioned him to write it, much to Gershwin's surprise at
the time.
Both Bing Crosby and Mildred Bailey got their start singing with the
Whiteman Orchestra.
In 1931, Whiteman married motion picture actress Margaret Livingston.
After he disbanded his Orchestra, in the 1940s and 1950s Whiteman worked
as a music director for the ABC Radio Network. He also hosted several
television programs and continued to appear as guest conductor for many
concerts.
Paul Whiteman died at the age of 77 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
* * * * * * *
Douglas Fairbanks (born in Denver, Colorado,
on May 23, 1883 as Douglas Elton Ullman) was an American actor,
screenwriter, director and producer, who became noted for his
swashbuckling roles in silent movies such as The Mark of Zorro (1920),
The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad
(1924) and The Black Pirate (1926).
Douglas Fairbanks began acting on the Denver stage at
an early age, doing amateur theatre. He was in summer stock at the
Elitch Gardens Theatre, becoming a sensation in his teens. He attended
East High School, and was once expelled for dressing up the campus
statues on St. Patrick's Day. He left during his senior year. He said he
attended Colorado School of Mines, then Harvard University for a term.
No record of attendance has been located, but an article about whether
or not he attended Mines recounts a professor once saying Fairbanks was
asked to leave because of a prank not long after he began.
He moved to New York in the early 1900s to pursue an
acting career, joining the acting troupe of British actor Frederick
Warde who had discovered Fairbanks performing in Denver. He worked in a
hardware store and as a clerk in a Wall Street office before his
Broadway debut in 1902.
On July 11, 1907 in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, he married Anna Beth
Sully, the daughter of wealthy industrialist, Daniel J. Sully. They had
one son, Douglas Elton Fairbanks (actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was
born on December 9, 1909 and who died on May 7, 2000). The family moved
to Hollywood in 1915.
Fairbanks signed a contract with Triangle Pictures in
1915 and began working under the supervision of D.W. Griffith. His
athletic abilities were not appreciated by Griffith, however, and he was
brought to the attention of Anita Loos and John Emerson, who wrote and
directed many of his early romantic comedies.
He met actress and businesswoman Mary Pickford at a party in 1916 and
they began having an affair. In 1917, they, along with Charlie Chaplin,
traveled across the U.S. by train selling war bonds. Pickford and
Chaplin were then the two highest paid movie stars in Hollywood.
Fairbanks set up his own production company, the Douglas Fairbanks Film
Corporation. Within eighteen months of his arrival, Fairbanks'
popularity and business acumen raised him up to be the third highest
paid. To curtail these stars' astronomical salaries, the large studios
attempted to monopolize the distributors and exhibitors.
To avoid being controlled by the studios and to
protect their independence, Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, and D. W.
Griffith formed United Artists in 1919, which created their own
distributorships and gave them complete artistic control over their
movies and the profits generated. The company was kept solvent in the
years immediately after its formation largely from the success of
Fairbanks' films.
Fairbanks was determined to have Pickford become his wife, but she was
still married to actor Owen Moore. They were both concerned about bad
publicity and the effect it could have on the moviegoing public, who
might boycott their efforts at the theater should they marry each other.
He finally gave her an ultimatum. She then obtained a fast divorce in
the small Nevada town of Minden on March 2, 1920. Fairbanks leased the
Beverly Hills mansion Grayhall and was rumoured to have used it during
his courtship of Pickford. (Grayhall was subsequently owned by, among
others, the financier Bernard Cornfeld.)
The couple were married March 28, 1920, by the pastor of Temple Baptist
Church, at his residence on West Fourth Street in Los Angeles.
Pickford's divorce from Moore was contested by Nevada legislators,
however, and the dispute was not settled until 1922. Even though the
lawmakers objected to the marriage, the public went wild over the idea
of "Everybody's Hero" marrying "America's Sweetheart." The couple was
greeted by crowds of up to 300,000 people in London and Paris during
their European honeymoon, becoming Hollywood's first celebrity marriage.
During the years they were married, Fairbanks and Pickford were regarded
as "Hollywood Royalty," and they were famous for entertaining at their
Beverly Hills estate, Pickfair.
By 1920, Fairbanks had completed twenty-nine films
(twenty-eight features and one two-reel short), which showcased his
ebullient screen persona and athletic ability. By 1920, he had the
inspiration of staging a new type of adventure-costume picture, a genre
that was then out of favor with the public. In the The Mark of Zorro,
Fairbanks combined his appealing screen persona with the new
adventureous, costume element. It was a smash success and parlayed the
actor into the rank of superstar. For the remainder of his career in
silent films, he continued to produce and star in ever more elaborate,
impressive costume movies. Fairbanks spared no expense and effort in
these films, which established the standard for all future swashbucking
films.
In 1921, he, Pickford, Chaplin, and others, helped to organize the
Motion Picture Fund to assist those in the industry who could not work,
or were unable to meet their bills.
During the first ceremony of its type, he and Pickford placed their hand
and foot prints in wet cement at the newly opened Grauman's Chinese
Theatre in Hollywood on April 30, 1927. Fairbanks was elected first
President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences that same
year, and he hosted the first Academy Awards presentation (then held as a
banquet, rather than today's big ceremony). Fairbanks' also has a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard.
In his final years he resided at 705 Ocean Front (now
Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California, although much of
his time was spent traveling abroad.
In December, 1939, at 56, Fairbanks had a heart attack in his sleep and
died a day later at his home in Santa Monica. His funeral service was
held at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather Church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
in Glendale, where he was placed in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum.
He was deeply mourned and honored by his colleagues and fans for his
contributions to the film industry and Hollywood. Two years following
his death, he was removed from Forest Lawn by his widow, who
commissioned an elaborate marble monument for him, with long rectangular
reflecting pool, raised tomb, and classic Greek architecture, at the
Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The remains of his son Douglas Fairbanks,
Jr. were was also interred here upon his death in 2000.
There is a witty reference to him in the David Lean film 'A Passage to
India' (set in Edwardian India) in which one of the characters performs
acrobatic feats on the side of a train calling, "I am Douglas
Fairbanks!"
* * * * * * *
Pam Grier (born on May 26, 1949 as Pamela
Suzette Grier) is an iconic American actress. She came to fame in the
early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately-successful
women-in-prison and blaxploitation films, and has since then remained in
the public spotlight, appearing in a large number of films, including
B-movies, and more notably in mainstream films such as the title
character in the 1974 film Foxy Brown as well as director Quentin
Tarantino's 1997 film, Jackie Brown.
Because of her father's military career, Pam's family
moved frequently during her childhood, such as living in England, and
eventually settling in Denver, Colorado, where Pam attended East High
School. While there she appeared in stage productions. Pam participated
in beauty contests in order to make money for college tuition.
Pam Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967,
where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American
International Pictures company. She was discovered by director Roger
Corman, who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House
(1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). She became a staple of the
blaxploitation movies of the early 1970s, playing big, bold, buxom,
roles, beginning with 1973's Coffy, in which Pam plays a nurse who seeks
revenge on drug dealers; her film character was advertised in the
trailer as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!". The
film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the
genre, was successful at the box office, and Grier was noted as the
first African American female to headline a film, as previously the
protagonists of blaxploitation films had exclusively been male. In his
review of Coffy, film critic Roger Ebert noted that Pam Grier was an
actress of "beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a
kind of "physical life" missing from other actresses. Grier
subsequently played similar characters in the films Foxy Brown (1974),
Friday Foster, and Sheba, Baby (both 1975).
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| Pam Grier |
With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier's career
went into hiatus for several years. She worked her way into
progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including notably the
stoned prostitute in Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), a witch in Something
Wicked this Way Comes (1983), and Steven Seagal's detective partner in
Above the Law (1988). She became a regular on the hit television
detective series Miami Vice in 1985. She also appeared in a guest
appearance on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air cast as a woman who slept with
her daughter's boyfriend, Will Smith.
Grier highlighted a successful television series
during the '90s on BET. She once again appeared in a leading role in
1997 as a stewardess in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, which many
consider her best work so far. Grier is currently appearing in the
television series The L Word as Kit Porter.
* * * * * * *
Tim Allen (born on June 13, 1953 in Denver
Colorado as Timothy Alan Dick) began his career as a stand-up comedian.
On a dare from one of his friends, he participated in an open-mic night
at a nightclub in Detroit. He soon became a regular average act at the
city's Comedy Store. He later moved to Los Angeles and became a member
of The Comedy Store there. He began to do stand-up appearances on
late-night talk shows and specials on record and film. He became a
member of the "dirty-dozen", a group of stand-up comedians popular for
their adult-oriented humor.
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| Tim Allen |
He rose to fame in acting with the television series
Home Improvement (1991-1999) on ABC in which he played Tim "The Tool
Man" Taylor. At one point in late 1994, he starred in the most watched
television show, Home Improvement, the highest grossing film, The Santa
Clause, and had the best selling book in North America, Don't Stand Too
Close to a Naked Man, simultaneously. The following year he provided the
voice of Buzz Lightyear in the blockbuster Toy Story. His Home
Improvement fame spawned Tim Allen Signature Tools, a line of power
tools distributed by Ryobi.
Allen's material consists mainly of discussions on
masculinity, male-female relationships, raising children, hardware and
tools, themes which make him accessible to a wide audience. He writes in
his first book that although he is enthusiastic about hardware, he is
far from expert. This became the basis for his sitcom. Near the end of
the show, Allen published I'm Not Really Here, a book detailing his
thoughts on quantum philosophy, intergender relationships, and the male
mid-life crisis.
Tim Allen has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6834 Hollywood Blvd.
* * * * * * *
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| Philip Bailey |
Philip Bailey (born May 8, 1951, Denver,
Colorado) is an American R&B, soul, Gospel and funk singer, best
known as one of the founding members of Earth, Wind & Fire.
Before joining Earth, Wind & Fire in 1971, Bailey was a vocalist for
the Phoenix Horns.
Bailey found fame singing lead on EW&F songs such
as "Devotion," "Head to the Sky," "Reasons," "Shining Star," and "Let's
Groove" and though in the latter he sung in tenor, he mostly has sung
the EW&F classics in falsetto. He often notes legendary singers
Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations and Smokey Robinson as influences and
mentors and preceding disco singer Sylvester.
Bailey is currently the on-stage leader of Earth,
Wind & Fire, along with bassist Verdine White,
vocalist/percussionist Ralph Johnson and vocalist/percussionist B. David
Whitworth.
Bailey has also recorded as a solo artist, as well as duets with Phil
Collins and Eric Benet. His most notable song was a duet with Phil
Collins, "Easy Lover" from his solo album Chinese Wall. Phil Collins,
during a radio interview, was asked how "he discovered" Philip Bailey.
Annoyed at the lack of knowledge of the interviewer he made up a story
about how he had been filling his car with gas/petrol when he heard the
attendant singing...and that turned out to be Philip Bailey. The
interviewer believed the whole story, which was also picked up by other
media outlets.
Philip is married to vocalist and EWF backup singer Krystal Bailey.
(Mary) Antoinette Perry (June 27, 1888 – June 28,
1946), was an actress, director, and co-founder of the American Theatre
Wing. From Wikipedia.org: Born in Denver, Colorado, she attended East High School on Colfax
Avenue, and spent her childhood aspiring to replicate the thespian
artistry of her aunt and uncle, both of whom were well-respected touring
actors. She appeared opposite David Warfield in Music Master in 1906
when she was only eighteen years old. Her career was on the rise, yet
she left the stage a star in 1909, to marry Denver businessman Frank W.
Frueauff and start a family. Years later, her daughters would follow in
her footsteps, likewise pursuing careers in the theatre, Elaine as a
producer and Margaret as a stage manager.
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| Mary Antoinette "Toni/Tony" Perry |
Following Frank Frueaff's death in 1922, Perry
returned to the stage, appearing notably in Kaufman & Ferber's
Minick. She took up directing in 1928. In partnership with Brock
Pemberton she produced several successful plays, including Divorce Me
Dear, Ceiling Zero, Red Harvest, Strictly Dishonorable, Personal
Appearance, and Kiss the Boys Goodbye. Their most famous production was
probably the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Chase classic Harvey, which
enjoyed moderate success on Broadway and lasting success as a film, both
starring Jimmy Stewart. Perry died from a heart attack during the
play's lengthy Broadway run on June 28, 1946.
Perry helped found, and was chairman of the board
and secretary of, the American Theatre Wing, which operated the Stage
Door Canteens during World War II, providing entertainment to servicemen
in several American cities. After her death, her friends and colleagues
took action to memorialize her contribution to the high standards of
American theatre. Brock Pemberton suggested that the American Theatre
Wing create a series of awards to be given in her honor. Since 1947, the
Antoinette Perry Awards have been given annually for distinguished
achievement in theatre, and are one of the theatre world's most coveted
honors. They are universally known by their nickname, the Tony Awards.
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