Respect Your Elders: Grandmaster Flash
#RespectYourElders: Joseph Saddler, known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is an American DJ and record producer. He’s considered to be one of the founding fathers of hip hop and rap. Flash was born in Barbados in 1957. His family emigrated to New York when he was a child and he was raised in the […]
Respect Your Elders: John Wooden
#RespectYourElders: The late John Wooden is considered the greatest NCAA basketball coach of all time. He coached the University of California at Los Angeles’ Bruins for 27 years, brought the team a 620-147 record and was named NCAA’s College Basketball Coach of the Year six times. Wooden was born in Hall, Indiana in 1910. He […]
Respect Your Elders: King Harald V
#RespectYourElders: Harald V, 83, is the King of Norway. He is the formal head of the Church of Norway and the Norwegian Armed Forces. Harald V was born in 1937; the youngest of three children to Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha of Sweden. In 1940, their family fled Oslo because of the German […]
Respect Your Elders: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#RespectYourElders: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 73, is a retired professional basketball player who played 20 seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. Outside of being one of the best basketball players to ever play, he’s been an actor, author, basketball coach, political activist, and martial artist. Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. in 1947 […]
Respect Your Elders: Sir Captain Tom Moore
#RespectYourElders, Sir Captain Tom Moore was a British Army officer in WWII who raised almost £33 million in aid of NHS Charities Together, a group of charities supporting first-responders and patients of the pandemic in the British National Health Service. He recently passed away from COVID-19 complications but leaves behind an unforgettable legacy. Moore was […]
Respect Your Elders: Mary Robinson
#RespectYourElders: Mary Robinson, is an Irish politician who served as the seventh president of Ireland in the ‘90s — the first woman to hold the position. She later served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Robinson was born in 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo. The daughter of two doctors, she grew up […]
Respect Your Elders: Diane von Furstenberg
#RespectYourElders: Diane von Fürstenberg is a Belgian fashion designer and philanthropist. Her popular fashion company, Diane von Fürstenberg (DVF), is in over 70 countries and she is widely considered the inventor of the iconic wrap dress. Von Fürstenberg was born Diane Simone Michele Haflin in Brussels, Belgium in December 1946. The daughter of Jewish parents, […]
Respect Your Elders: Robert L. Johnson
#RespectYourElders: Robert L. Johnson, 74, is an American entrepreneur, media tycoon, philanthropist and investor. He’s a co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET) and founder of RLJ Companies. Johnson was the United States’ first African-American billionaire. Johnson was born the ninth of ten children in 1946 in the small town of Hickory, Mississippi. He grew up […]
Respect Your Elders: Danny Trejo
#RespectYourElders, Danny Trejo, 76, is a Mexican-American actor and entrepreneur. He’s acted in popular movies like “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Machete,” as well as famous shows such as “Breaking Bad” and “Family Guy.” Trejo was born in Los Angeles in 1944. At a very young age, he began to struggle with drugs and […]
Respect Your Elders: Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek was a Canadian-American TV personality and game show host. He’s known by most for being the face of “Jeopardy!,” which he hosted for 37 seasons and more than 8,200 episodes. Trebek recently passed away following a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Born in 1940 in Sudbury, Ontario, George Alexander Trebek grew up in […]
Respect Your Elders: Jeff Koons
#RespectYourElders: Jeff Koons, 65, is one of the most successful living American sculptors, illustrators and painters in the art world. He is recognized for his work addressing popular culture and consumerism. Koons was born in 1955, in York, Pennsylvania. His father was an interior designer and decorator and his mother was a seamstress. At the […]
Respect Your Elders: Erwin Helfer
Erwin Helfer, 84, a Chicago boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist and teacher. He’s well known across Chicago for his intimate performances, whip-smart sense of humor and loyal fans who love to see him play. Helfer is born and raised a Chicagoan. After meeting music historian and modernist composer William (Bill) Russell in the 1950s, Helfer […]
Respect Your Elders: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#RespectYourElders: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court and trailblazer for the advancement of women’s rights and countless other important issues. She was the second woman nominated to the Supreme Court and the first Jewish female justice. She passed away in September at the age of 87. Ginsburg was […]
Respect Your Elders: Michael Caine
RespectYourElders: Sir Michael Caine CBE, 87, is an English actor, producer and author. One of the highest-grossing actors of all time, he’s been in over 130 films in an over 60-year career. Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to a house cleaner and a fish market porter. He grew up in South London, […]
Respect Your Elders: Arianna Huffington
#RespectYourElders: Arianna Huffington, 69, is the co-founder of The Huffington Post, founder of Thrive Global and author of 15 books with topics ranging from feminism to corporate America to politics. Huffington was born Arianna Stassinopoulus in Athens, Greece in 1950. Her father was a journalist but she says her mother helped her develop ambitious goals […]
Respect Your Elders: Oprah
#RespectYourElders: Oprah, 66, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, and philanthropist. She is one of the richest and most influential women in the United States. Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in the winter of 1954. Her parents separated soon after she was born. As a young child, she lived […]
Respect Your Elders: John Lewis
#RespectYourElders: John Lewis was an American politician and Civil Rights icon who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia from 1987 until his recent passing at 80. He was often called “the conscience of the U.S. Congress.” Lewis was born the son of sharecroppers in 1940 in Troy, Alabama. He attended segregated […]
Respect Your Elders: Vera Lynn
#RespectYourElders: Dame Vera Lynn was an English singer, songwriter, and entertainer who recently passed away in June at 103 years old. Lynn is well known for her music and support of the British troops in WWII. Lynn was born in London’s East Ham neighborhood in 1917. By the age of 11, people around her noticed […]
Respect Your Elders: Phil Jackson
#RespectYourElders: Phil Jackson, 74, is a former professional basketball player, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls, and executive in the National Basketball Association. Jackson was born in 1945 in Montana. He grew up in the state but went to high school in North Dakota. Both of Jackson’s parents were Pentecostal ministers and […]
Respect Your Elders: Jimmy Carter
#RespectYourElders: Jimmy Carter, 95, is the 39th president of the United States, former Governor of Georgia and a lifelong philanthropist. James Earl Carter, Jr. was born in 1924 in a small farming town in Georgia. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer and businessman and his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, was a registered […]
Respect Your Elders: Queen Elizabeth II
#RespectYourElders: Elizabeth II, 94, is Queen of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and other realms and territories, as well as Head of the Commonwealth. She is the longest-reigning British monarch in history. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, the elder daughter of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was […]
Respect Your Elders: Samuel L. Jackson
#RespectYourElders: Samuel Leroy Jackson, 71, is an American actor and film producer. From Marvel to Star Wars, he is one of the most well-known names in Hollywood and one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Jackson was born in Washington D.C., but his mother and grandparents raised him in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jackson attended the […]
Respect Your Elders: Pope Francis
#RespectYourElders: Pope Francis, 83, is the head of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first Latin American pope and the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years. Francis, previously Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1936. His parents, Mario, an accountant, and Regina, […]
Respect Your Elders: Jonathan Goldsmith
#RespectYourElders: Jonathan Goldsmith, 81, is an American actor and known by many for his role in the Dos Equis beer ad campaign as “the most interesting man in the world.” Goldsmith was born in New York, New York in 1938 to a model and a gym teacher. He is of Russian-Jewish descent. Goldsmith graduated from […]
Respect Your Elders: James Allison
#RespectYourElders, James P. Allison, Ph.D., 71, is a world-renowned cancer researcher, Nobel laureate and executive director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His research and discoveries have led to new cancer treatments for some of the world’s deadliest cancers. Allison grew up in Alice, Texas. At the young age of […]