Clarence Brown

Clarence Brown (May 10, 1890 – August 17, 1987) was an American film director. Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was eleven.

He attended the University of Tennessee, graduating at the age of 19 with two degrees in engineering. An early fascination in automobiles led Brown to a job with the Stevens Duryea Company, then to his own Brown Motor Car Company in Alabama. He later abandoned the car dealership after developing an interest in motion pictures around 1913. He was hired by the Peerless Studio at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and became an assistant to the great French-born director Maurice Tourneur.

After serving in World War I, Brown was given his first co-directing credit (with Tourneur) for 1920s The Great Redeemer. Later that year, he directed a major portion of The Last of the Mohicans after Tourneur was injured in a fall.

Brown moved to Universal in 1924, and then to MGM, where he stayed until the mid-1950s. At MGM he was one of the main directors of their female stars–he directed both Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo five times. Garbo referred to Brown as her favorite director.

He worked across the introduction of sound and continued to use the silent film's visual techniques throughout his career; he did not work particularly well with dialogue. His works have been regarded as considerate and atmospheric, but often conventional, placid and slow[citation needed]. Nevertheless, he was nominated five times (see below) for the Academy Award as a director, and once as a producer, but never received an Oscar. However, he did win Best Foreign Film for Anna Karenina at the 1935 Venice International Film Festival.

Brown retired a wealthy man due to his real estate investments, but refused to watch new movies, as he feared they might cause him to restart his career. In the 1970s, Brown became a much-sought guest lecturer on the film-festival circuit, thanks in part to his connection with Garbo.

The Clarence Brown Theater, on the campus of the University of Tennessee, is named in his honor. By Clarence Ng

George, Duke of Clarence

George, Duke of Clarence (21 October 1449 – 18 February 1478) was the third son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of kings Edward IV and Richard III of England.

He played an important role in the dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses, but is better remembered as the character in William Shakespeare's play Richard III who was drowned in a vat of Malmsey wine.

George was born on 21 October 1449 in Dublin, at a time when his father was beginning to challenge King Henry VI for the crown. He was the third of the four sons of Richard and Cecily who survived to adulthood. Following his father's death and the accession of his elder brother, Edward, to the throne, George was created Duke of Clarence in 1461. (He was not the first Duke of Clarence. The first one, Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence (1338-1368), was a brother of the Black Prince, and the second, Thomas, a brother of Henry V.)

On 11 July 1469, George married Isabel Neville, elder daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick ("Warwick the Kingmaker"). Following her father's death, Clarence was jure uxoris Earl of Warwick.

Clarence had actively supported his elder brother's claim to the throne, but, following his marriage, he began to play a dangerous game. When his father-in-law, the Earl of Warwick, became discontented and jealous, and deserted Edward to ally himself with Margaret of Anjou, consort of the deposed King Henry, Clarence joined him in France, taking his pregnant wife, Isabel. She gave birth to their first child (who died shortly afterwards) on 16 April 1470, in a ship off Calais. After a short time, Clarence realised that his loyalty to his father-in-law was misplaced, for Warwick proceeded to marry his younger daughter, Anne, to the Prince of Wales, King Henry's heir, and it became evident that he was placing his own interests before those of Clarence and Isabel. There now seemed little chance that he intended to place Clarence on the throne instead of his elder brother; so Clarence changed sides.

Warwick's efforts to return Henry VI to the throne having failed, and Warwick himself having been killed in battle, George was restored to royal favour, but now saw his main rival as his younger brother, Richard Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Gloucester, who had married the widowed Anne Neville. In 1475, his wife Isabel, Anne's sister, finally gave birth to a son, Edward, later Earl of Warwick.

Like the first lords of Richmond, Peter II of Savoy and Ralph de Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland before him, George was endowed with the lordship of Richmondshire but without the peerage. By Clarence Ng

Clarence Jordan

Clarence Jordan (July 29, 1912 - October 29, 1969), a farmer and New Testament Greek scholar, was the founder of Koinonia Farm, a small but influential religious community in southwest Georgia and the author of the Cotton Patch translations of the New Testament. He was also instrumental in the founding of Habitat for Humanity.

Jordan was born in Talbotton, Georgia to J. W. and Maude Josey Jordan, prominent citizens of that small town. From an early age the young Jordan was troubled by the racial and economic injustice that he perceived in his community. Hoping to improve the lot of sharecroppers through scientific farming techniques, Jordan enrolled in the University of Georgia, earning a degree in agriculture in 1933. During his college years, however, Jordan became convinced that the roots of poverty were spiritual as well as economic. This conviction led him to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, from which he earned a Ph.D. in Greek in 1938. While at seminary Jordan met Florence Kroeger, and the couple were soon married. By Clarence Ng

Clarence White

Clarence White (born Clarence LeBlanc) (June 7, 1944 – July 14, 1973) was a guitar player for Nashville West, The Byrds, Muleskinner, and the Kentucky Colonels. His parents were French-Canadians from New Brunswick, Canada. The father, Eric White, Sr., played fiddle, guitar, banjo and harmonica, and his children, Roland, Eric Jr., Joanne and Clarence took up music at a young age.

Born in Lewiston, Maine, the family followed relatives in 1954 to Burbank, California, and the White children eventually formed a band called the Three Little Country Boys, and soon secured a regular spot on a local radio program, and had attracted the interest of country star, Joe Maphis. in 1958 the band cut their first single, and had become well enough known to land several appearances on the Andy Griffith Show. In late 1962, the Country Boys became the Kentucky Colonels.

Despite their successes, the Colonels were having a harder time making a living playing bluegrass. The folk boom had been staggered by the British Invasion in 1964, but the death blow, ironically, was dealt in mid-1965 with the release of "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds and "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan. While they did attempt to experiment with electric instrumentation, this was only met with indifference from rock audiences and consternation from their folk and country fan base. By October of '65, the Colonels dissolved as an ongoing unit after playing their final show on Halloween night. By Clarence Ng

Clarence King

Clarence King (January 6, 1842 – December 24, 1901) was an American geologist and mountaineer. He was the first director of the United States Geological Survey, from 1879-1881. Clarence King was noted for his exploration of the Sierra Nevada. He was born in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1862, King graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College with a Ph.B. in chemistry. While at Yale, he studied with James Dwight Dana. After graduation King traveled on horseback to California with his good friend and classmate, James Terry Gardiner. In California he joined the California Geological Survey without pay where he worked with William H. Brewer and Josiah D. Whitney. In October 1872, he uncovered a diamond and gemstone hoax perpetrated by Philip Arnold. In 1864, King and Richard Cotter reported the first ascent of Mount Tyndall, at the time labeling it mistakenly as the highest peak in the Sierra Nevada.

In 1867, King was named U.S. Geologist of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, commonly know as the Fortieth Parallel Survey, a position for which he strongly lobbied. King spent six years in the field exploring areas form Wyoming to the border of California. During that time he also published his famous "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada" (1872). After the completion of the field work, in 1878 King published "Systematic Geology."

While conducting field work for the Survey, King met and befriended Henry Adams. Their friendship lasted for the rest of King's life, and he is often mentioned by Adams in the autobiographical, "The Education of Henry Adams" (1907).

In 1879, the US Congress consolidated the number of geological surveys exploring the American West and created the United States Geological Survey. King was chosen its first director, however he served for only twenty months.

His common law marriage in 1888 to a black woman, Ada Copeland, was kept secret by his keeping a double identity. King didn't even reveal his true name to his wife until he was on his deathbed. He was survived by four children.

King died of tuberculosis in Phoenix, Arizona, and is buried in Newport, Rhode Island. Kings Peak in Utah and Mount Clarence King in Kings Canyon National Park are named in his honor. By Clarence Ng

Clarence Seedorf

Clarence Seedorf (born April 1, 1976 in Paramaribo, Suriname) is a Dutch-Surinamese football midfielder, who currently plays for AC Milan in Serie A. He was the first, and to date, the only person to have won the UEFA Champions League with three different clubs: Ajax (1995), Real Madrid (1998), and AC Milan (2003); he has also played for the clubs Sampdoria and Internazionale, and has been a member of the Netherlands national team. By Clarence Ng

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. He is the second African American to serve on the nation's highest court, after Justice Thurgood Marshall. Thomas's career in the Supreme Court has seen him take a conservative approach to cases and adhering to the postulates of originalism.

Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community outside Savannah. His father abandoned his family when he was only a year old, leaving his mother Leola Anderson, to take care of the family. At age seven they went to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson in Savannah. He had a fuel oil business that also sold ice; Thomas often helped him make deliveries.

His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance and would counsel him to "never let the sun catch you in bed in the morning". In 1975, when Thomas read Race and Economics by economist Thomas Sowell, he found an intellectual foundation for this philosophy. The book criticized social reforms by government and instead argued for individual action to overcome circumstances and adversity.

Raised Roman Catholic (he later attended an Episcopal church with his wife, but returned to the Catholic Church in the late 1990s), Thomas considered entering the priesthood, attending St. John Vianney's Minor Seminary on the Isle of Hope near Savannah, and he briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Catholic seminary in Missouri. Thomas told interviewers that he left the seminary (and the call for priesthood) after hearing racist comments there following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Thomas later attended College of the Holy Cross, where he co-founded the school's Black Student Union and received an A.B., cum laude. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School in 1974.

Thomas has one child, Jamal Adeen, from his first marriage. This marriage, to Kate Ambush, lasted from 1971 until their 1984 divorce. Thomas married Virginia Lamp in 1987.

Since joining the Supreme Court, Thomas requested an annulment of his first marriage from the Catholic Church, which was granted by the Tribunal of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington. He was reconciled to the Catholic Church in the mid 1990s and remains a practicing Catholic. By Clarence Ng

Clarence Ng

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