Macon

The Grand Opera House, often called The Grand and also known as Academy of Music, is a historic opera house located in Macon, Georgia, United States.... Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is currently operated as a performing arts center of Mercer University. Originally known as the Academy of Music, the Grand was built in 1883 and 1884 with the largest stage in the southeastern United States, outstanding lines-of sight and acoustics , and seats for 2,418, nearly a fifth of Macon's population at the time. The facade, a building located on Mulberry Street, was renovated in 1902, and the present seven-story office building facade opened in 1905. Since that time, the stage has seen numerous historic uses. Live horses and chariots appeared in an 1908 production of Ben-Hur. During World War I, actor Charlie Chaplin led the John Phillip Sousa band for a fundraising effort. According to the Grand's website, the theater has also hosted, among others, Sarah Bernhardt, Will Rogers, and George Burns and Gracie Allen.
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Carmichael House, known also as Raines-Carmichael House, Raines-Miller-Carmichael House or Cadwalader Raines House, is a Greek Revival mansion in... Macon, Georgia, United States. It was built in 1848. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973.
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Small House in Macon, Georgia, also known as Ralph Small House or Napier-Small House, was built in 1846. It was listed on the National Register of... Historic Places in 1971.
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Goodall House, also known as George D. Collins House, is a Macon, Georgia house built in 1859. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

Kenneth Wayne Shamrock is an American mixed martial artist, UFC Hall of Famer and professional wrestler. Shamrock emerged as one of the biggest... stars in the history of mixed martial arts, headlining over 15 main events and co-main events in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships during the course of his career and set numerous pay per view records with his drawing power. Shamrock is widely considered to be a legendary figure and icon in the sport of mixed martial arts. Shamrock was named The World's Most Dangerous Man by ABC News in a special entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Things" in the early part of his UFC career, a moniker which has become synonymous as his nickname. Shamrock became known early on in the UFC for his rivalry with Royce Gracie. After fighting to a draw with Gracie in the inaugural Superfight, he became the first UFC Superfight Champion after defeating Dan Severn at UFC 6; the title was eventually renamed the UFC Heavyweight Championship when weight categories were introduced to the UFC. He was also the first foreign MMA Champion in Japan, winning the title of King of Pancrase.
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Robert McDuffie is an internationally renowned violinist. He has played as a soloist with many of the major orchestras around the world including... those of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Minnesota, Houston, St. Louis, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome as well as the major orchestras of Australia and East Asia. At the beginning of 2007 he toured the US East Coast for nearly 5 weeks with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. McDuffie has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, CBS News Sunday Morning, NBC's The Today Show, PBS's Charlie Rose, National Public Radio, as well as the front page of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. McDuffie was born into a musical family in Macon, Georgia, United States. Both his mother, Susan McDuffie, and his younger sister, Margerie McDuffie, are pianists. He attended the Juilliard School in New York City.
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Nancy Ann Grace is an American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor. She frequently discusses issues... from what she describes as a victims' rights standpoint, with an outspoken style that has won her both praise and condemnation. She is the host of Nancy Grace, a nightly celebrity news and current affairs show on HLN, and she was the host of Court TV's Closing Arguments. She also co-wrote the book Objection! — How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System. She was also the host of Swift Justice with Nancy Grace, a syndicated courtroom reality show on which her replacement, former Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass, was announced May 24, 2011, effective at the end of its first season. Nancy Grace was born in Macon, Georgia, the youngest of three children, to Mac Grace, a freight agent for Southern Railway, and Elizabeth Grace, a payroll clerk for a manufacturing plant. Grace has two older siblings: a brother, Mac Jr., and a sister, Ginny.
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Jason Aldine Williams is an American country music singer, known professionally as Jason Aldean. Since 2005, Aldean has recorded for Broken Bow... Records, an independent record label for which he has released four albums and twelve singles. His 2005 self-titled debut and 2009 album Wide Open are both certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America , while 2007's Relentless is certified gold. Of his singles, six have reached the number one position on the Hot Country Songs charts: "Why", "She's Country", "Big Green Tractor", "The Truth", "Don't You Wanna Stay" , and "Dirt Road Anthem", and eight more have reached top ten on the same chart. Aldean's parents, Barry and Debbie, divorced when he was three. He was raised by his mother, mainly in Macon, Georgia, where he went to high school at Windsor Academy. During the summer he would spend time with his father in Homestead, Florida. Before going to work during the day, his dad would map out guitar chords on notebook paper to show Jason where to place his fingers to play the chords. Jason sat and practiced all day while his dad was at work.
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Jack McBrayer is an American actor and comedian. He gained national exposure for his characters on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He is best known... for portraying Kenneth Parcell on the television series 30 Rock, a role for which he received an Emmy nomination in 2009. McBrayer was born in Georgia and studied theater at the University of Evansville. McBrayer worked at Second City and iO from 1995 to 2002, an experience that introduced him to 30 Rock creator Tina Fey and prepared him "100 percent" for his role in her show. From 2002-2004, McBrayer appeared in over 80 sketches on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, often lampooning his own Southern upbringing by playing stereotypical hillbilly characters. On August 10, 2007 and September 20, 2008 he made a cameo appearance on Late Night playing his character from 30 Rock. During the first appearance, O'Brien remarked to him, "I thought you were above this now.
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Howard Tate was an American soul singer and songwriter. He moved with his family to Philadelphia in the early 1940s. In his teens, he joined a... gospel music group that included Garnet Mimms and, as the Gainors, recorded rhythm and blues sides for Mercury Records and Cameo Records in the early 1960s. Tate performed with organist Bill Doggett and returned to Philadelphia. Mimms, leading a group called the Enchanters, introduced Tate to record-producer Jerry Ragovoy, who began recording Tate for Verve Records. Utilizing New York session musicians such as Paul Griffin, Richard Tee, Eric Gale, Chuck Rainey, and Herb Lovell, Tate and Ragovoy produced, from 1966 to 1968, a series of soul blues recordings that are regarded as some of the most sophisticated of the era. "Ain't Nobody Home" , "Look at Granny Run Run" , "Baby I Love You" , and "Stop" all written or co-written by Ragovoy, were well received by record buyers. "Ain't Nobody Home", "Look At Granny" and "Stop" charted in the Top 20 in the US Billboard R&B chart. Janis Joplin performed another of Tate's Ragavoy songs, "Get It While You Can", during this time.
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Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor. Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas... later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud and Being There . Douglas was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Lena Priscilla and Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a concert pianist and composer. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Riga, Latvia, then part of Russia. His mother, a native of Tennessee, was Protestant and a Mayflower descendant. His maternal grandfather, George Shackelford, was a General and Civil War veteran. Douglas, in his autobiography, See You at the Movies , writes that he was unaware of his Jewish background until later in his youth: "I did not learn about the non-Christian part of my heritage until my early teens," as his parents preferred to hide his Jewish heritage. It was his aunts, on his father's side, who told him "the truth" when he was 14.
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Lucille Nelson Hegamin was an American singer and entertainer, and a pioneer African American blues recording artist. Hegamin was born as Lucille... Nelson in Macon, Georgia, United States. From an early age she sang in local church choirs. By the age of 15 she was touring the US South with the Leonard Harper Minstrel Stock Company. In 1914 she settled in Chicago, Illinois, where, often billed as "The Georgia Peach", she worked with Tony Jackson and Jelly Roll Morton before marrying pianist, Bill Hegamin. She later told a biographer: "I was a cabaret artist in those days, and never had to play theatres, and I sang everything from blues to popular songs, in a jazz style. I think I can say without bragging that I made the "St. Louis Blues" popular in Chicago; this was one of my feature numbers." Lucille Hegamin's stylistic influences included Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Etting. The Hegamins moved to Los Angeles, California in 1918, then to New York City the following year. Bill Hegamin led his wife's accompanying band, called the Blue Flame Syncopators; Jimmy Wade was a member of this ensemble.
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Kenneth Wayne Shamrock is an American mixed martial artist, UFC Hall of Famer and professional wrestler. Shamrock emerged as one of the biggest... stars in the history of mixed martial arts, headlining over 15 main events and co-main events in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships during the course of his career and set numerous pay per view records with his drawing power. Shamrock is widely considered to be a legendary figure and icon in the sport of mixed martial arts. Shamrock was named The World's Most Dangerous Man by ABC News in a special entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Things" in the early part of his UFC career, a moniker which has become synonymous as his nickname. Shamrock became known early on in the UFC for his rivalry with Royce Gracie. After fighting to a draw with Gracie in the inaugural Superfight, he became the first UFC Superfight Champion after defeating Dan Severn at UFC 6; the title was eventually renamed the UFC Heavyweight Championship when weight categories were introduced to the UFC. He was also the first foreign MMA Champion in Japan, winning the title of King of Pancrase.
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Charles Douville Coburn was an American film and theater actor. Coburn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Scots-Irish Americans Emma Louise... Sprigman and Moses Douville Coburn. Growing up in Savannah, he started out doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs, ushering, or being the doorman. By age 17 or 18, he was the theater manager. He later became an actor, making his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with actress Ivah Wills in 1905. They married in 1906. In addition to managing the company, the couple performed frequently on Broadway. After his wife's death in 1937, Coburn relocated to Los Angeles, California and began film work. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a retired millionaire playing Cupid in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946.
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Sam Edwards was an American actor. His most famous role on TV was as the banker in the TV series Little House on the Prairie. Born into a... showbusiness family, his first role was as a baby in his mother's arms. He appeared on radio in the 1930s in the Adventures of Sonny and Buddy one of the first radio serials ever syndicated, and later in The Edwards Family, a series based on the life of Sam, brother Jack, sister Florida, and his parents, Edna Parks and Jack Edwards Sr. Sam was also an early cast member of one of the first radio soap operas, One Man's Family. His first major screen role was as Chuck Ramsey in the movie serial version of Captain Midnight . During World War II, Sam was inducted into the Army and ended up serving as part of the morale-building entertainment corps, spending much of the time in the African, European and India/Burma theater, travelling for a time with Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton's regiments. After the war, he kept very busy on a variety of radio programs, and landed a starring role opposite Janet Waldo in the long-running Meet Corliss Archer series.
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Veronica "Randy" Crawford is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has... not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. She has had multiple top five hits in the UK, including her 1980 #2 hit, "One Day I'll Fly Away". Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez, but made her name in mid 1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley. Adderley invited her to sing on his album, Big Man . Crawford recorded "Don't Get Caught in Love's Triangle," produced by Johnny Bristol, during her short stint on the Fantasy label. In 1978 former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett had Crawford perform on his second solo album Please Don't Touch. Hackett discovered Crawford in a Chicago club and was so impressed that he had her sing vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last", the opening song on side two of the album. "I first saw her playing at Park West in Chicago where she was supporting Jaco Pastorius.
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