inah Washington was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1924, as Ruth lee Jones.

She moved to Chicago as a child and played piano and sang at her church. At 15 she began to perform secular music and became one of…

Ralph Stanley was born in 1927 in the Clinch Mountains of Virginia. He learned to play the banjo as a child and, with his older brother, Carter, formed the Stanley Brothers Band in 1947.

They achieved success through radio airplay,…

Dinah Shore was born Frances Rose Shore in Winchester, Tennessee.

She had polio as a baby but recovered to become a cheerleader in high school. She earned a bachelors degree in sociology from Vanderbilt University before launching her career in…

George C. Scott was born in Wise, Virginia in 1927.

His mother died when he was 8 years old. In 1945 he joined the Marines and served for four years. After his service he attended University of Missouri Journalism School…

Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in Sevier County, Tennessee. She was from a family of twelve children.

She reportedly began to make up songs before she could read or write and has since authored more than 300 songs, many…

Loretta Lynn was born in 1935 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky.

She is a coal miner’s daughter and the second of eight children. She married at 13 and had four children by 17. She had a total of six children and…

James Cleveland Owens, better known as Jesse Owens, was born in Oakville, Alabama in 1913, the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave.

He moved with his family to Cleveland Ohio at the age of 8. He…

Clark Gable, the “King of Hollywood”, was born in Cadiz, Ohio in 1901.

His father was an oil rigger and later a farmer. His mother died when he was an infant and his father remarried. However Clark’s stepmother encouraged him…

Patricia Neal was born in Packard, Kentucky in 1926. She studied drama at Northwestern University and won a Tony Award for her work on Broadway.

She starred in many successful films and won an Oscar for Best Actress. Her peronal…

Roy Acuff was born in 1903 in Maynardville, Tennessee.

He was a talented athlete and received 13 varsity letters in sports in high school. While playing baseball for a farm team he suffered a severe sun stroke that necessitated a…