100 Notable alumni of
CUNY City College
Updated:
CUNY City College is 147th in the world, 65th in North America, and 62nd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from CUNY City College sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Stanley Kubrick
- Occupations
- scenographerfilm editorphotographercinematographerproducer
- Biography
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Stanley Kubrick was an American filmmaker and photographer. A major figure of the post-war film industry, Kubrick is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. His films were nearly all adaptations of novels or short stories, spanning a number of genres and gaining recognition for their intense attention to detail, innovative cinematography, extensive set design, and dark humor.
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Henry Kissinger
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- 1941-1943 studied accounting
- Occupations
- entrepreneurdiplomatautobiographerforeign ministerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat and political scientist. He served as the 7th national security advisor from 1969 to 1975, followed by being the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. He served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
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Tony Curtis
- Occupations
- film actormilitary officerpaintertelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Tony Curtis was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles covering a wide range of genres. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances.
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Colin Powell
- Occupations
- diplomatarmy officerpolitician
- Biography
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Colin Luther Powell was an American Army general, diplomat, and statesman who was the 65th United States secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 and was the highest-ranking Black American in the federal executive branch in American history (along with his successor Condoleezza Rice) until the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008. Originally a member of the Republican Party, he was the first Black American to hold the office. He was the 15th national security advisor from 1987 to 1989, and the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
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Eli Wallach
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Master of Education
- Occupations
- stage actormilitary officeractorautobiographerfilm producer
- Biography
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Eli Herschel Wallach was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a BAFTA Award, a Tony Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He also was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the Academy Honorary Award in 2010.
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Abraham Maslow
- Occupations
- university teacherpsychologist
- Biography
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Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.
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Barry Manilow
- Occupations
- singercomposersinger-songwriterpianistlyricist
- Biography
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Barry Manilow is an American singer and songwriter with a career spanning over sixty years. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", "Looks Like We Made It", "Mandy", "I Write the Songs", "Ready to Take a Chance Again", "Can't Smile Without You", "Weekend in New England", and "Copacabana (At the Copa)".
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Luis Gómez
- Occupations
- television actoractorfilm actorcharacter actor
- Biography
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Luis Guzmán is a Puerto Rican actor. His career spans over 40 years and includes a number of films and television series. He has appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's films Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999) and Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and Steven Soderbergh's films Out of Sight (1998), The Limey (1999) and Traffic (2000). His other film credits include Q & A (1990), The Hard Way (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Snake Eyes (1998) and Keanu (2016). For his role in The Limey, he received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male.
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Judd Hirsch
- Occupations
- actortelevision actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Judd Seymore Hirsch is an American actor. He is known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), John Lacey on the NBC series Dear John (1988–1992), and Alan Eppes on the CBS series Numb3rs (2005–2010). He is also well known for his career in theatre and for his roles in films such as Without a Trace (1983), Teachers (1984), Independence Day (1996) and its sequel Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Tower Heist (2011), Altered Minds (2013), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), and Hollywood Stargirl (2022).
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Mark Duplass
- Occupations
- showrunneractortelevision actorfilm actorfilm producer
- Biography
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Mark David Duplass is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and musician. With his brother Jay Duplass, he started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions in 1996, for which they wrote and directed The Puffy Chair (2005), Baghead (2008), Cyrus (2010), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012).
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Russell Simmons
- Occupations
- record producerwriterentrepreneurtelevision producermanager
- Biography
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Russell Wendell Simmons is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. He has promoted veganism and a yoga lifestyle, and published books on lifestyle, health, and entrepreneurship. Simmons' net worth was estimated at $340 million in 2011.
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Héctor Elizondo
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorvoice actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Héctor Elizondo is an American character actor. He is known for playing Phillip Watters in the television series Chicago Hope (1994–2000) and Ed Alzate in the television series Last Man Standing (2011–2021). His film roles include Pocket Money (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Cuba (1979), American Gigolo (1980), The Flamingo Kid (1984), Taking Care of Business (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), The Princess Diaries (2001), and Love in the Time of Cholera (2007).
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Mario Puzo
- Occupations
- screenwriternovelistwriterdiplomatscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Mario Francis Puzo was an American author and screenwriter. He wrote crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.
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Henry Miller
- Occupations
- novelistcorrespondentpainterwatercoloristessayist
- Biography
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Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blends character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, stream of consciousness, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association, and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn, and the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, which are based on his experiences in New York City and Paris, and all of which were banned in the United States until 1961. He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism and painted watercolors.
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Sheldon Adelson
- Occupations
- entrepreneur
- Biography
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Sheldon Gary Adelson was an American businessman, investor, and political donor. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which founded the Marina Bay Sands luxury resort in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operated The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli free daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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Richard Schiff
- Occupations
- film actoruniversity teacherstage actortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Richard Schiff is an American actor. He is best known for playing Toby Ziegler on The West Wing, a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his television directorial debut with The West Wing, directing an episode titled "Talking Points". He is on the National Advisory Board of the Council for a Livable World. He had a recurring role on the HBO series Ballers. He had a leading role in ABC's medical drama The Good Doctor, as Dr. Aaron Glassman, and portrayed Odin in Santa Monica Studio's God of War: Ragnarök, released in 2022.
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Edward G. Robinson
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorcharacter actorart collectorfilm actor
- Biography
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Edward Goldenberg Robinson was an American actor who was popular during Hollywood's Golden Age. After making his stage debut in 1913, he rose to stardom with his performance as the title character in Little Caesar (1931) and became well known for his portrayals of gangsters. He starred in a variety of films, including the biopics Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and A Dispatch from Reuters (both 1940) and the film noirs Double Indemnity and The Woman in the Window (both 1944).
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Jonas Salk
- Occupations
- immunologistbiologistepidemiologistinventorvirologist
- Biography
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Jonas Edward Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.
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Upton Sinclair
- Occupations
- writerfilm producerplaywrightopinion journalistpolitician
- Biography
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Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California. He wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Ed Koch
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- politicianfilm criticlawyerwriterjudge
- Biography
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Edward Irving Koch was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. A popular figure, Koch rode the New York City Subway and stood at street corners greeting passersby with the slogan "How'm I doin'?"
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Hal Linden
- Occupations
- television actortelevision directorjazz musicianfilm actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Hal Linden is an American stage and screen actor, television director and musician.
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Ross Martin
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actorstage actor
- Biography
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Ross Martin was an American radio, voice, stage, film, and television actor. Martin was best known for portraying Artemus Gordon on the CBS Western series The Wild Wild West, which aired from 1965 to 1969. He was the voice of Doctor Paul Williams in 1972's Sealab 2020, additional characters in 1973's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and additional character voices in 1978's Jana of the Jungle.
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Wally Cox
- Occupations
- television actorwritervoice actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Wallace Maynard Cox was an American actor. He began his career as a standup comedian and played the title character of the popular early American television series Mister Peepers from 1952 to 1955. He also appeared as a character actor in over 20 films and dozens of television episodes. Cox was the voice of the animated canine superhero Underdog in the Underdog TV series.
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Zero Mostel
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorvoice actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel was an American actor, comedian, and singer. Mostel received several accolades including three Tony Awards and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award. He is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1979.
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1943
- Occupations
- writersociologistmilitary personnelteacherpolitician
- Biography
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 after serving as an adviser to President Richard Nixon, and as the United States' ambassador to India and to the United Nations.
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Alfred Stieglitz
- Occupations
- exhibition curatorphotography criticpublisherphotographer
- Biography
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Alfred Stieglitz HonFRPS was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Brock Peters
- Occupations
- actortelevision actorcharacter actorfilm actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Brock Peters was an American actor, best known for playing the villainous "Crown" in the 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess, and Tom Robinson in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. He made his Broadway debut in the 1965 Norman Rosten play Mister Johnson. He was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his lead role as Rev. Stephen Kumalo in the 1972 Broadway revival of the musical Lost in the Stars. He received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1991 and a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992.
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Herman Hollerith
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1879
- Occupations
- businesspersonmathematicianengineerinventorstatistician
- Biography
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Herman Hollerith was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in accounting. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine, patented in 1884, marks the beginning of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.
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Bernard Mannes Baruch
- Occupations
- economistbankerentrepreneurstockbrokertrader
- Biography
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Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier and statesman.
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Albert Ellis
- Occupations
- behaviour therapistnon-fiction writercognitive scientistpsychologistsex educator
- Biography
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Albert Ellis was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He also founded, and was the President of, the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and an early proponent and developer of cognitive-behavioral therapies.
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Ben Ferencz
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1940
- Occupations
- writerjuristlawyeruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Benjamin Berell Ferencz was an American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen trial, one of the 12 subsequent Nuremberg trials held by US authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. When the Einsatzgruppen reports were discovered, Ferencz pushed for a trial based on their evidence. When confronted with a lack of staff and resources, he personally volunteered to serve as the prosecutor.
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Jackie Mason
- Occupations
- film actorcomedianstage actorrabbitelevision actor
- Biography
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Jackie Mason was an American stand-up comedian and actor.
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Leonard Susskind
- Occupations
- scientistuniversity teacherphysiciststring theoristnon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Leonard Susskind is an American theoretical physicist, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests are string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
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Dick Miller
- Occupations
- television directorfilm actortelevision actoractorvoice actor
- Biography
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Richard Miller was an American character actor who appeared in more than 180 films, including many produced by Roger Corman. He later appeared in the films of directors who began their careers with Corman, including Joe Dante, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese, with the distinction of appearing in every film directed by Dante. He was known for playing the beleaguered everyman, often in one-scene appearances.
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Ira Gershwin
- Occupations
- librettistsongwriterlyricistcomposerpoet
- Biography
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Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century. With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love", and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.
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Butterfly McQueen
- Occupations
- stage actordancertelevision actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Butterfly McQueen was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in films as Prissy in Gone with the Wind (1939). She also appeared in the films Cabin in the Sky (1943), Mildred Pierce (1944), and Duel in the Sun (1946).
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John Marley
- Occupations
- theatrical directortelevision actorstage actorfilm actor
- Biography
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John Marley was an American actor and theatre director. He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 29th Venice International Film Festival for his performance in John Cassavetes' Faces (1968), and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his role in Love Story (1970). He was also known to film audiences for his role as Jack Woltz—the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head of his prized thoroughbred horse in his bed—in The Godfather (1972).
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George Friedman
- Occupations
- geopolitical analystbusinesspersonnon-fiction writerpolitical scientist
- Biography
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George Friedman is a Hungarian-born American futurologist, political scientist, and writer. He is a geopolitical author on international relations. He is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures, he was chairman of the publishing company Stratfor. He is best known for his 1991 book The Coming War With Japan, co-authored with his wife Meredith LeBard, which predicted a military conflict between the United States and Japan around 2020.
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A. Philip Randolph
- Occupations
- politiciancivil rights advocatetrade unionistpolitical activistsocialist
- Biography
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Asa Philip Randolph was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American-led labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement, Randolph was a prominent voice. His continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against racist labor practices helped lead President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully maintained pressure, so that President Harry S. Truman proposed a new Civil Rights Act and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 in 1948, promoting fair employment and anti-discrimination policies in federal government hiring, and ending racial segregation in the armed services.
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Paddy Chayefsky
- Occupations
- playwrightnovelistfilm producerscience fiction writeractor
- Biography
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Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both Adapted and Original screenplays.
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Kenneth Arrow
- Occupations
- economistpolitical scientistwriteruniversity teacherteacher
- Biography
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Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician and political theorist. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1957, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972, along with John Hicks.
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Sam Jaffe
- Occupations
- stage actoractorengineerteacherfilm producer
- Biography
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Shalom "Sam" Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician, and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). He also appeared in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), and is additionally known for his roles as the titular character in Gunga Din (1939) and as the "High Lama" in Lost Horizon (1937).
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Samuel R. Delany
- Occupations
- literary criticjournalistcartoonistscience fiction writerwriter
- Biography
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Samuel R. "Chip" Delany is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.
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Felix Frankfurter
- Occupations
- juristlawyerjudgepolitician
- Biography
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Felix Frankfurter was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, advocating judicial restraint.
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Sidney Gottlieb
- Occupations
- biochemistchemist
- Biography
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Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra.
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Michael Parenti
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- opinion journalistuniversity teacherhistorianjournalistpolitical scientist
- Biography
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Michael John Parenti was an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who wrote on scholarly and popular subjects. He taught at universities and also ran for political office. Parenti was well known for his Marxist writings and lectures, and was an intellectual of the American Left.
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Barnett Newman
- Occupations
- paintersculptorprintmakerillustrator
- Biography
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Barnett Newman was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense of place that viewers experience with art and incorporate the simplest forms to emphasize this feeling.
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Larry Cohen
- Occupations
- film producerscreenwriterfilm director
- Biography
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Lawrence George Cohen was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem (both 1973), before becoming known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s. His directorial works include It's Alive (1974) and its sequels, God Told Me To (1976), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987).
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Walter Mosley
- Occupations
- playwrightactorwriterscience fiction writerchildren's writer
- Biography
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Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hardboiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
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Lewis Mumford
- Occupations
- sociologistart historianurban plannerjournalistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Lewis Mumford was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. He made significant contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history, and the history of technology.
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Rosalind Cash
- Occupations
- television actorstage actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Rosalind Cash was an American actress. Her best-known film role is in the 1971 science-fiction film The Omega Man. Cash also had another notable role as Mary Mae Ward in ABC's General Hospital, a role she portrayed from 1994 until her death in 1995.
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Len Lesser
- Occupations
- television actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Leonard King Lesser was an American character actor and comedian, best known for his recurring role as Uncle Leo on Seinfeld. He was also known for his role as Garvin on Everybody Loves Raymond.
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Abraham Beame
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Abraham David Beame was an English-born American accountant, investor, and Democratic Party politician who served from 1974 to 1977 as the 105th mayor of New York City. Beame presided over the city during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy.
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Julian Schwinger
- Occupations
- theoretical physicistnon-fiction writeruniversity teachernuclear physicistmathematician
- Biography
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Julian Seymour Schwinger was an American theoretical physicist. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics with Richard Feynman and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics (QED), with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles". He developed a relativistically invariant perturbation theory, and renormalized QED to one loop order. Schwinger was a physics professor at several universities.
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Maurice Ashley
- Occupations
- coachchess commentatornon-fiction writerchess player
- Biography
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Maurice Ashley is a Jamaican and American chess player, author, and commentator. In 1999, he earned the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM).
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Bernard Malamud
- Occupations
- writernovelistuniversity teacherscreenwriter
- Biography
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Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel The Natural was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer (also filmed), about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Irving Kristol
- Occupations
- sociologistphilosopherpublisherpoliticianjournalist
- Biography
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Irving William Kristol was an American journalist and writer. As a founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the latter half of the twentieth century. He was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism". After his death, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as being "perhaps the most consequential public intellectual of the latter half of the century". He is the father of political writer Bill Kristol.
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Robert Aumann
- Occupations
- pedagoguemathematicianresearcherprofessoreconomist
- Biography
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Robert John Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also holds a visiting position at Stony Brook University, and is one of the founding members of the Stony Brook Center for Game Theory.
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Leonard Kleinrock
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- 1951-1957 graduated with Bachelor of Electrical Engineering
- Occupations
- computer scientistprofessormathematicianpatent inventor
- Biography
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Leonard Kleinrock is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Kleinrock made several important contributions to the field of computer science, in particular to the mathematical foundations of data communication in computer networking. He has received numerous prestigious awards.
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Daniel Bell
- Occupations
- teacheropinion journalistsociologistuniversity teacherjournalist
- Biography
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Daniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era". His three best known works are The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976).
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Faith Ringgold
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1959 graduated with Master of Arts
- Occupations
- quiltmakerwriterpaintersculptortextile artist
- Biography
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Faith Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.
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Bob Kahn
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1960 graduated with bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
- Occupations
- computer scientistpatent inventorengineerinventorelectrical engineer
- Biography
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Robert Elliot Kahn is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.
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Arno Allan Penzias
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- physicistastronomer
- Biography
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Arno Allan Penzias was an American physicist and radio astronomer. He shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics with Robert Woodrow Wilson "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation".
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David Wechsler
- Occupations
- university teachereducatorpsychologist
- Biography
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David "Weshy" Wechsler was a Romanian-American psychologist. He developed well-known intelligence scales, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) to get to know his patients at Bellevue Hospital. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Wechsler as the 51st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
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Alexander Lowen
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1930 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- psychotherapist
- Biography
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Alexander Lowen was an American physician and psychotherapist.
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Simone Gold
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- physicianlawyeranti-vaccine activist
- Biography
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Simone Melissa Gold is an American doctor and known for her opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines. She is the founder of America's Frontline Doctors, a right-wing political organization known for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. Before her arrest and guilty plea for participating in the 2021 United States Capitol attack, she had gained attention when a video of an America's Frontline Doctors press conference in front of the US Supreme Court Building went viral in July 2020. During the press conference, she touted the supposed benefits of hydroxychloroquine, despite evidence that it is ineffective as a COVID-19 treatment and can carry significant risks.
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Jeff Barry
- Occupations
- songwritersinger-songwritersingerrecord producer
- Biography
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Jeff Barry is an American pop music songwriter, singer, and record producer. Among the most successful songs that he has co-written in his career are "Tell Laura I Love Her" (written with Ben Raleigh and a number 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart when it was recorded by Ricky Valance and number 7 in the US as sung by Ray Peterson), "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Then He Kissed Me", "Be My Baby", "Chapel of Love", and "River Deep - Mountain High" (all written with his then-wife Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector); "Leader of the Pack" (written with Greenwich and Shadow Morton); "Sugar, Sugar" (written with Andy Kim); "Without Us" (written with Tom Scott), and "I Honestly Love You" (written with Peter Allen).
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Andy Mineo
- Occupations
- directorrapperfilm actorsongwriteractor
- Biography
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Andrew Aaron Mineo is an American hip hop artist, producer, music executive, and video director based in New York City. He was signed to Reach Records until leaving in September 2024 to pursue his creative initiative Miner League. In addition to his solo work, he is a member of Reach Records' hip hop collective 116 Clique.
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Leon M. Lederman
- Occupations
- university teacherparticle physicistphysicist
- Biography
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Leon Max Lederman was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, along with Martin Lewis Perl, for research on quarks and leptons. Lederman was director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, where he was resident scholar emeritus from 2012 until his death in 2018.
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Red Holzman
- Occupations
- basketball playerbasketball coach
- Biography
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William "Red" Holzman was an American professional basketball player and coach. He is best known as the head coach of the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1967 to 1977, and again from 1978 to 1982. Holzman helped lead the Knicks to two NBA championships in 1970 and 1973, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1986.
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William Klein
- Occupations
- film directorgraphic artistdirectorfashion photographerpainter
- Biography
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William Klein was an American-French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was ranked 25th on Professional Photographer's list of 100 most influential photographers.
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Julie Bovasso
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1948-1951
- Occupations
- actortelevision actorwriterfilm actorstage actor
- Biography
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Julia Anne Bovasso was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.
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Ned Glass
- Occupations
- television actorstage actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Nusyn "Ned" Glass was a Polish-born American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and on television more than one hundred times, frequently playing nervous, cowardly, or deceitful characters. Notable roles he portrayed included Doc in West Side Story (1961) and Gideon in Charade (1963). Short and bald, with a slight hunch to his shoulders, he had a nasal voice and a pronounced New York City accent. He also played a stage coach driver in Season 1, episode 1 of the TV series “Bonanza.”
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Arthur Kornberg
- Occupations
- university teachernon-fiction writerchemistbiochemistphysician
- Biography
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Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" together with Spanish biochemist and physician Severo Ochoa of New York University. He was also awarded the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1951, an L.H.D. degree from Yeshiva University in 1962, and the National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1991, Kornberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the Gairdner Foundation Award in 1995.
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William Lombardy
- Occupations
- priestnon-fiction writerchess playertheologian
- Biography
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William James Joseph Lombardy was an American chess grandmaster, chess writer, teacher, and former Catholic priest. He was one of the leading American chess players during the 1950s and 1960s, and a contemporary of Bobby Fischer, whom he seconded during the World Chess Championship 1972. He won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1957, the only person to win that tournament with a perfect score. Lombardy led the U.S. Student Team to Gold in the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad.
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Herb Stempel
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied study of history
- Occupations
- military personnel
- Biography
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Herbert Milton Stempel was an American television game show contestant and subsequent whistleblower on the fraudulent nature of the industry, in what became known as the 1950s quiz show scandals. His rigged six-week appearance as a winning contestant on the 1950s show Twenty-One ended in an equally rigged defeat by Columbia University teacher and literary scion Charles Van Doren.
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John Johnson
- Occupations
- television presenterfilmmakerreporter
- Biography
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John Johnson is an American television anchorman, senior correspondent, documentary filmmaker, and visual artist. He was a reporter on New York City television news for many years.
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Ray Simpson
- Occupations
- singeractor
- Biography
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Ray Simpson is an American singer best known as a former lead singer and "Cop" of the disco super-group Village People, having been in that role for over 30 years. In August 1979, he replaced original lead singer, Victor Willis as the Cop, a role he would fill until 1982, and again from 1987 until Willis' return in 2017. Simpson had been performing backup singing for Village People in its first years, which is why he was recruited (on very short notice) to join the group when Willis left.
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Robert Hofstadter
- Occupations
- astrophysicistphysicistuniversity teachernuclear physicist
- Biography
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Robert Hofstadter was an American physicist. He was the joint winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons".
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Paul Goodman
- Occupations
- philosopheruniversity teacherpolitical scientistliterary criticpedagogue
- Biography
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Paul Goodman was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decentralization, democracy, education, media, politics, psychology, technology, urban planning, and war. As a humanist and self-styled man of letters, his works often addressed a common theme of the individual citizen's duties in the larger society, and the responsibility to exercise autonomy, act creatively, and realize one's own human nature.
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John O'Keefe
- Occupations
- scientistpsychologistuniversity teacherneurologist
- Biography
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John O'Keefe FRS FMedSci is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist and a professor at University College London.
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Emmett J. Rice
- Occupations
- university teachereconomist
- Biography
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Emmett John Rice was an American economist, academic, bank executive, and member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, taught at Cornell University during the 1950s, and was a noted expert in the monetary systems of developing countries. Susan Rice, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Advisor to Barack Obama, is his daughter.
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Morton Sobell
- Occupations
- spyengineer
- Biography
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Morton Sobell was an American engineer and Soviet spy during and after World War II; he was charged as part of a conspiracy which included Julius Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel Rosenberg. Sobell worked on military and government contracts with General Electric and Reeves Instrument Corporation in the 1940s, including during World War II. Sobell was tried and convicted of espionage in 1951 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
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Alphonse Mouzon
- Occupations
- jazz musiciansongwritercomposeractormusic arranger
- Biography
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Alphonse Lee Mouzon was an American musician and vocalist, most prominently known as a jazz fusion drummer. He was also a composer, arranger, producer, and actor. Mouzon gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was the owner of Tenacious Records, a label that primarily released Mouzon's recordings.
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David Brian
- Occupations
- film actoractortelevision actor
- Biography
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Brian James Davis, better known as David Brian, was an American actor. He is best known for his role in Intruder in the Dust (1949), for which he received critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination. Brian's other notable film roles were in The Damned Don't Cry (1950), This Woman Is Dangerous (1952), Springfield Rifle (1952), Dawn at Socorro (1954), and The High and the Mighty (1954).
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Henry Morgenthau
- Occupations
- diplomatlawyerentrepreneur
- Biography
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Henry Morgenthau was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans who spoke about the Greek genocide and the Armenian genocide of which he stated, "I am firmly convinced that this is the greatest crime of the ages."
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Jean Toomer
- Occupations
- teachernovelistwriterplaywrightpoet
- Biography
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Jean Toomer was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the latter association. His reputation stems from his novel Cane (1923), which Toomer wrote during and after a stint as a school principal at a black school in rural Sparta, Georgia. The novel intertwines the stories of six women and includes an apparently autobiographical thread; sociologist Charles S. Johnson called it "the most astonishingly brilliant beginning of any Negro writer of his generation". He resisted being classified as a "Negro" writer and he identified as "American". For more than a decade Toomer was an influential follower and representative of the pioneering spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff.
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Mordecai Kaplan
- Occupations
- translatordiaristuniversity teacherrabbiessayist
- Biography
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Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was an American Conservative rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian-philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist movement of Judaism with his son-in-law, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein. He has been described as a "towering figure" in the recent history of Judaism for his influential work in adapting it to modern society, contending that Judaism should be a unifying and creative force by stressing the cultural and historical character of the religion as well as theological doctrine.
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Reuben Fine
- Occupations
- academicpsychologistnon-fiction writerchess player
- Biography
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Reuben C. Fine was an American chess player, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology. He was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the mid-1930s until his retirement from chess in 1951. He was granted the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1950, when titles were introduced.
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George Washington Goethals
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1876 studied civil engineering
- Occupations
- military officercivil engineerengineer
- Biography
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George Washington Goethals was an American military officer and civil engineer, best known for his administration and supervision of the construction and the opening of the Panama Canal. He was the first Governor of Panama Canal Zone from 1914 to 1917, and was also the State Engineer of New Jersey and the Acting Quartermaster General of the United States Army.
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Persi Diaconis
- Occupations
- academicuniversity teachermathematicianstatisticianmagician
- Biography
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Persi Warren Diaconis is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University.
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Michael Kidd
- Occupations
- film directordancertheatrical directoractorchoreographer
- Biography
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Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.
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Mitchell Feigenbaum
- Occupations
- university teachermathematicianphysicist
- Biography
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Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum /ˈfaɪɡənˌbaʊm/ was an American mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants.
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Robert Ferdinand Wagner
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1898
- Occupations
- juristlawyerjudgepolitician
- Biography
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Robert Ferdinand Wagner I was a German-born American attorney and Democratic Party politician who represented the state of New York in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1949.
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Norman Spinrad
- Occupations
- science fiction writerscreenwriterwriternovelisttrade unionist
- Biography
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Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards.
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Julius Axelrod
- Occupations
- pharmacologistscientistchemistbiochemistneuroscientist
- Biography
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Julius Axelrod was an American biochemist. He won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 along with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. The Nobel Committee honored him for his work on the release and reuptake of catecholamine neurotransmitters, a class of chemicals in the brain that include epinephrine, norepinephrine, and, as was later discovered, dopamine. Axelrod also made major contributions to the understanding of the pineal gland and how it is regulated during the sleep-wake cycle.
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Theodore Millon
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1949 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- university teacherpsychologist
- Biography
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Theodore Millon was an American psychologist known for his work on personality disorders. He founded the Journal of Personality Disorders and was the inaugural president of the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders. In 2008 he was awarded the Gold Medal Award For Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Foundation named the "Theodore Millon Award in Personality Psychology" after him. Millon developed the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, worked on the diagnostic criteria for passive-aggressive personality disorder, worked on editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and developed subtypes of a variety of personality disorders.
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Edward Kasner
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- 1891-1896 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- mathematicianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Edward Kasner was an American mathematician who was appointed tutor in Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jewish person appointed to a faculty position in the sciences at Columbia University. Subsequently, he became an adjunct professor in 1906, and a full professor in 1910, at the university. Differential geometry was his main field of study. In addition to introducing the term "googol", he is known also for the Kasner metric and the Kasner polygon.
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Gregory Chaitin
- Occupations
- computer scientistphilosopheruniversity teachermathematician
- Biography
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Gregory John Chaitin is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. His work was foundational to the development of algorithmic information theory, and has been influential on metamathematics. He independently discovered what is today known as algorithmic (Kolmogorov or Solomonoff–Kolmogorov–Chaitin) complexity simultaneously with Andrei Kolmogorov and Ray Solomonoff.
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Marvin Kalb
- Occupations
- television presenternews presenterjournalist
- Biography
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Marvin Leonard Kalb is an American journalist. He was the founding director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. The Shorenstein Center and the Kennedy School are part of Harvard University. Kalb is currently a James Clark Welling Fellow at George Washington University and a member of the Atlantic Community Advisory Board.
