Savannah

The Jepson Center for the Arts is the newest addition to 119 year old Telfair Museum organization. Partnered with the Owen Means House and the... Telfair Academy for the Arts and Sciences, the Jepson Center has grown steadily since it opened its doors to Savannah, GA in 2006. It is the first expansion of the Telfair organization history and was created to add exhibition space and offer a venue for modern art. The Telfair has expanded to include the ArtZeum which is an interactive space for children and young adults to experience and learn about art. ArtZeum features major commissioned works by glass artist Therman Statom and computer-video artist Jennifer Steinkamp. The building features 64,000 sq. feet of display space and is divided into two distinct galleries. A display space for installations is located on the second floor. The architecture of building was designed by the Israeli architect Moshe Safdie and it bears many of his artistic traits, such as an emphasis on open space and swooping geometric shapes. A defining architectural characteristic is the glass bridge which connects the two buildings that comprise the Jepson center.
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John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office... of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder. He is sometimes called The Great Pathfinder. He retired from the military and moved to the new territory California, after leading a fourth expedition which cost ten lives seeking a rail route over the mountains around the 38th parallel in the winter of 1849. He became one of the first two U.S. Senators elected from the new state in 1850. He was soon bogged down with lawsuits over land claims between the dispossessions of various land owners during the Mexican-American War, and the explosion of Forty-Niners immigrating during the California Gold Rush. He lost the 1856 presidential election to Democrats James Buchanan and John C. Breckenridge when Democrats warned his election would lead to civil war.
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Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles. Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised... in Bainbridge, near the Alabama border. She attended Goddard Seminary in Barre, Vermont and Syracuse University , but apparently did not matriculate. At age 20, Hopkins became a chorus girl in New York City. In 1930, she signed with Paramount Pictures, and made her official film debut in Fast and Loose. Her first great success was in the 1931 horror drama film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which she portrayed the character Ivy Pearson; a prostitute who becomes entangled with the lead protagonists Jekyll and Hyde. Hopkins received rave reviews, however due to the controversy that surrounded the finished film and in particular, her character, many of Hopkins's scenes were cut before the official release. This reduced Hopkins to approximately five minutes of screen time.
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Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent , is a former American Major League Baseball player and manager. He earned two World Series rings as the starting shortstop... for the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978, and was voted the World Series MVP in 1978. Dent is most famous for his home run in a tie-breaker game against the Boston Red Sox at the end of the 1978 season. Dent was born 25 November 1951, in Savannah, Georgia, to Dennis O'Dey and Russell "Shorty" Stanford. He went home from the hospital with his mother's brother and his wife, James Earl and Sarah Dent. He and his half-brother were raised by the Dents, and they changed his last name to theirs, but his mother would not allow them to legally adopt him. He and his half-brother thought of the Dents as their parents, and until he was ten years old, Dent believed his biological mother was his aunt. Later in life, she mentioned the name of his father, whom Dent tracked down and developed a relationship with. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Dent grew up in Sylvania, Georgia, and Hialeah, Florida, graduating from Hialeah High School. Dent was the sixth pick in the 1970 major league draft.
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Walter Stacy Keach Jr. is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in... educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical roles. Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Mary Cain , an actress, and Walter Stacy Keach, a theater director, drama teacher, and actor. His brother James Keach is an actor and television director. Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959, where he was class president, then earned two BA degrees at the University of California, Berkeley , one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1966 Keach played the title role, in MacBird! an Off Broadway spoof at the Village Gate.
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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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Fredericka Carolyn "Fredi" Washington was an accomplished African American dramatic film actress, who was active during the period known as the... Harlem Renaissance . She is best known for her role as Peola in the 1934 version of the film Imitation of Life. Fredi Washington was born in Savannah, Georgia to Hattie and Robert T. Washington, who according to her sister Isabel, were both African American. Fredi was the second of their five children. Her mother, Hattie, died when Fredi was a girl. As the oldest girl in her family, Fredi helped raise her younger siblings Isabel, Rosebud and Robert with the help of her grandmother, who the family called "Big Mama." After her mother's death, Fredi was sent away to a school for colored/minority girls in Philadelphia because motherless girls during this time were thought of as orphans. Her sister, Isabel, soon followed her. At some point her father, Robert T. Washington remarried, but his second wife died while carrying his child. He later remarried a third time and produced four more children, giving Fredi a total of eight siblings.
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John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was... also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time. He wrote the lyrics to more than fifteen hundred songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Award nominations, and won four. Mercer was also a co-founder of Capitol Records. Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia. His father, George Anderson Mercer, was a prominent attorney and real estate developer, and his mother, Lillian Elizabeth , George Mercer’s secretary and then second wife, was the daughter of Croatian-Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1850s. Lillian's father was a merchant seaman who ran the Union blockade during the U.S. Civil War. Mercer was George's fourth son, first by Lillian.
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Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles. Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised... in Bainbridge, near the Alabama border. She attended Goddard Seminary in Barre, Vermont and Syracuse University , but apparently did not matriculate. At age 20, Hopkins became a chorus girl in New York City. In 1930, she signed with Paramount Pictures, and made her official film debut in Fast and Loose. Her first great success was in the 1931 horror drama film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which she portrayed the character Ivy Pearson; a prostitute who becomes entangled with the lead protagonists Jekyll and Hyde. Hopkins received rave reviews, however due to the controversy that surrounded the finished film and in particular, her character, many of Hopkins's scenes were cut before the official release. This reduced Hopkins to approximately five minutes of screen time.
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Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent , is a former American Major League Baseball player and manager. He earned two World Series rings as the starting shortstop... for the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978, and was voted the World Series MVP in 1978. Dent is most famous for his home run in a tie-breaker game against the Boston Red Sox at the end of the 1978 season. Dent was born 25 November 1951, in Savannah, Georgia, to Dennis O'Dey and Russell "Shorty" Stanford. He went home from the hospital with his mother's brother and his wife, James Earl and Sarah Dent. He and his half-brother were raised by the Dents, and they changed his last name to theirs, but his mother would not allow them to legally adopt him. He and his half-brother thought of the Dents as their parents, and until he was ten years old, Dent believed his biological mother was his aunt. Later in life, she mentioned the name of his father, whom Dent tracked down and developed a relationship with. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Dent grew up in Sylvania, Georgia, and Hialeah, Florida, graduating from Hialeah High School. Dent was the sixth pick in the 1970 major league draft.
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Walter Stacy Keach Jr. is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in... educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical roles. Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Mary Cain , an actress, and Walter Stacy Keach, a theater director, drama teacher, and actor. His brother James Keach is an actor and television director. Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959, where he was class president, then earned two BA degrees at the University of California, Berkeley , one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1966 Keach played the title role, in MacBird! an Off Broadway spoof at the Village Gate.
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Hal Kanter was a writer, producer and director, principally for comedy actors such as Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Elvis Presley , for both feature... films and television. Kanter helped Tennessee Williams turn the play by Williams into the film version of The Rose Tattoo. Since 1991, he was regularly credited as a writer for the Academy Award broadcasts. Kanter died at his home in Encino, California on November 6, 2011, aged 92.
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Kenneth Scott Rogers is a former American Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. During a 20-year baseball career, he pitched from 1989-2008... for six different teams. In addition to being known for his fielding , he pitched the fourteenth perfect game in major league baseball history. In 2008, he was the oldest baseball player in the American League. Rogers is sometimes nicknamed "The Gambler", after a song made famous by a singer who shares his name. Rogers grew up on a 15-acre farm in Dover, Florida. His personal goal was to play in the majors for three years, and be able to qualify for a pension. He, his wife Rebecca Lewis, and children Jessica and Trevor Rogers reside in Westlake, Texas. He enjoys golf, fishing, and building houses for Habitat for Humanity. Rogers was assigned to the Texas Rangers farm team after being drafted in the 39th round for $1,000 when he was 17 years old. He graduated from Plant City High School in Florida in 1982, where he played baseball only during his senior season, hitting .375 as a right fielder .
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