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Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young girls in western Iowa, except for one thing - Donna was very beautiful. That wasn't to say that others weren't as pretty, it's just that Donna's beauty stood out from all the other local girls, so much so that she won a beauty contest in Denison. Upon graduation from high school Donna left for college in Los Angeles, in the hopes of eventually entering movies. While at Los Angeles City College, she pursued her dream by participating in several college stage productions. In addition to the plays, she also won the title of Campus Queen. At one of those stage plays Donna was spotted by an MGM talent scout and was signed to a contract. Her first film was a minor role in MGM's The Getaway (1941). That was followed by a small part in Babes on Broadway (1941), with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland as a secretary. She then won her breakthrough role in Shadow of the Thin Man (1941). Afterwards, MGM began giving her better parts, in films such as The Bugle Sounds (1942), The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942) and The Man from Down Under (1943). In 1944 she received second billing playing Carol Halliday in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944), a comedy about a reporter drafted into the army who eventually meets up with Donna's character as a worker in the canteen. The following year Donna starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), her best role to date. It was a love story set in London in 1890. It got mixed critical reviews but did well at the box-office. Donna was now one of the leading ladies of Hollywood. In 1946 she starred in what is probably her best-known role, as the wife of James Stewart in the classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). This timeless story is a holiday staple to this day. The film also starred Lionel Barrymore and Thomas Mitchell. The next year Donna starred as Ann Daniels in Paramount's Beyond Glory (1948) with Alan Ladd, which did well at the box-office. Her next role was the strongest she had had yet--Chicago Deadline (1949), again with Ladd. It was one of the best mystery dramas to come out of Hollywood in a long time, and did very well at the box office. As the 1940s faded out and the 1950s stormed in, Donna's roles got bigger but were mainly of the wholesome, girl-next-door type. In 1953, however, she starred as the hostess Alma in the widely acclaimed From Here to Eternity (1953). She was so good in that film she was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, beating out such veterans as Thelma Ritter and Marjorie Rambeau. The film itself won for Best Picture and remains a classic to this day. Later that year Donna starred in The Caddy (1953), a comedy with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Three years later she landed the role of Sacajawea in The Far Horizons (1955), the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, starring Charlton Heston and Fred MacMurray. After finishing The Whole Truth (1958), Donna began her own TV series (produced by her husband), The Donna Reed Show (1958), a hit that ran for eight years. She was so effective in the show that she was nominated for TV's prestigious Emmy Award as Best Actress every year from 1959-1962. She was far more popular in TV than on the screen. After the run of the program, Donna took some time away from show business before coming back in a couple of made-for-TV movies (in 1974, she had made a feature called Welcome to Arrow Beach (1973), but it was never released). She did get the role of Ellie Ewing Farlow in the hit TV series Dallas (1978) during the 1984-85 season. It was to be her final public performance. On January 14, 1986, less than two weeks before her 65th birthday, she died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California. Grover Asmus, her husband, created the Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts in her hometown of Denison. The foundation helps others who desire a career in the arts. Donna never forgot her roots. She was still a farm girl at heart.

John Hillerman, who most famously played the impeccably urbane Englishman Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (VC !) -- Tom Selleck's sophisticated majordomo in Magnum, P.I. (1980) --, was of French, German and Austrian descent, raised in a small Texas town and educated at a Catholic high school. He majored in journalism at the University of Texas, enlisted in the Air Force and spent the period from 1953 to 1957 stationed at Ft. Worth. There, he unexpectedly landed a choice role in a community theatre production of "Death of a Salesman" and discovered acting to be to his liking. Having a photographic memory benefited Hillerman greatly, as it enabled him to learn his lines quickly. He professed to be able to memorize a page of dialogue in the space of a minute. There remained the problem of his Texas accent, however. Following demobilization, he traveled to New York where it took him a year to lose his drawl, studying elocution under the tutelage of voice coach Fanny Bradshaw (who encouraged him to listen to recordings of Laurence Olivier reciting "Hamlet"). All the while, Hillerman lived the life of a typical struggling actor, having taken up residence in a lower East Side tenement and living on home-made turkey soup. After fifteen years of stage work and with a meager $700 to his name, he decided to try to change his luck by making the journey to Hollywood.

His first major break came when he was picked for a small part in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971)). From then on he was rarely out of work, although initially tasked with only smallish supporting roles. By the mid-70s, after memorable back-to-back turns in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Chinatown (1974), Hillerman had established his credentials. His first opportunity to shine in a recurring TV role was as pompous radio sleuth Simon Brimmer ("Policemen snoop, without a glimmer. To solve the case, call Simon Brimmer...") who persistently got it all very wrong in TV's Ellery Queen (1975). A self-declared Anglophile with a solid acting background in plays by Noël Coward, he fairly jumped at the chance to portray Selleck's genteel sidekick Higgins in "Magnum" which was to become his personal favorite and career-defining role.

A hard-working director throughout his long and varied career, Robert Clouse was best-known for his two most successful films: Enter the Dragon (1973) and Game of Death (1978). Born in 1928, he was a director. After being hired by Warner Bros. and Golden Harvest to direct Enter the Dragon (1973), Clouse was escalated into the realm of profitable directors. But, unlike others in this category, doors in Hollywood were not entirely open to him. In 1974, he was hired to direct Black Belt Jones (1974) for Warner Brothers Pictures. The film proved to be a moderate success.

In 1978, Clouse returned to Hong Kong where he was hired by Golden Harvest's Raymond Man-Wai Chow to direct a comeback movie for Martial Artist Bruce Lee, despite the fact that Lee had died five years earlier. Clouse was given the incomplete footage from Lee's original version of Game of Death, but decided that only a small amount of this footage should be used (mainly because the original film's plot had been re-created countless times in Hong Kong cinema since Lee's death). With the help of Sammo Kam-Bo Hung and Robert Wall, among others, Clouse shot several Bruce Lee lookalikes and stand-ins as well as cutting back to footage from other Lee movies and, of course, the original Game of Death takes. Clouse was never able to match the success of his two Lee films later in his career. He died in 1997, aged 68.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on Tuesday, October 14, 1890, as Dwight David Eisenhower, in Denison, Texas. He was the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. Both of his parents were of German descent. Eisenhower studied at the West Point Military Academy from 1911-1915. He served with the infantry, became the #3 leader of the tank corps, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the First World War. From 1922-1924 he served in the Panama Canal Zone as executive officer to General, Fox Conner. From 1925-1926 he studied at the Command and General Staff College in Kansas, and from 1928-1933 he served as executive officer to Gen. George V. Moseley: Assistant Secretary of War, in Washington, DC.

Eisenhower was chief military aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur from 1933-1935. He accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines in 1935, and served there as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government until 1939. Back in Washington, he held various staff positions and was promoted to Brigadier General in September 1941. Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on Sunday, December 7th, 1941. Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff. There he gradually rose to Assistant Chief of Staff under the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall. Although Eisenhower had no experience in active military command, Marshall recognized his organizational and administrative strength. It was his association with Marshall that brought Eisenhower to London in June 1942 as Commanding General of the European Theater of Operations. He was also appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces of the North African Theater of Operations, which was renamed the Mediterranean Theater of Operations after the capitulation of the German army in Africa. In September of 1943 Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasion of Sicily and then of Italy, which led to the immediate surrender of Italian forces in southern Italy. However, the German Winter Line fortifications in Italy, kept fighting even after the fall of Berlin.

Eisenhower was in charge of planning and carrying out the Allied landings in Normandy, France, and the invasion of Germany. The first part of his plan, named Operation Overlord, was the largest seaborne operation in history. Under this plan, 2.8 million Allied troops from 12 nations crossed the English Channel. Starting on Tuesday, June 6th, 1944, known as "D-Day", they landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. After extremely fierce heavy fighting, the Allies breached the fortifications and pushed back the defending German forces. Two months later they reached Paris. Adolf Hitler had ordered the German commander of Paris to destroy the city rather than let it fall into Allied hands, but that officer refused to carry out those orders and eventually surrendered the city to the Allies. After fighting that was not as fierce as was expected, the city of Paris was liberated on Friday, August 25th, 1944. Eisenhower was with French Gen. Charles de Gaulle at the Hotel de Ville, where they greeted the Allied forces and took part in the French victory parade. After liberating Belgium and the Netherlands, the Allied troops crossed into Germany. In 1945 US and Soviet armies linked up on the Elbe River, west of Berlin. Soon Eisenhower met with Russian Gen. Georgi Zhukov and the two made a trip to the Soviet Union; the first (and only) time Eisenhower did so. After the German surrender on Tuesday, May 8th, 1945, Eisenhower was made the Military Governor of the US Occupied Zone in Germany, based in Frankfurt. He ordered the detailed search, documentation, photographing and widespread dissemination of what went on in the Nazi death camps. By actions such as these, Eisenhower began the process of documenting the horrors of the Holocaust.

Although he had never been in action himself, Eisenhower was respected as a brilliant military strategist and skilled political leader during the Second World War. He successfully dealt with conflicting demands from many sides, and managed to mollify such tough and determined personalities as Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery and Gen. George S. Patton. From 1945 to 1948 Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and from 1950-1952 was Supreme Commander of all NATO forces.

Eisenhower won the 1952 US presidential elections, with Richard Nixon as his Vice President, and brought the Republicans back to national power after 20 years. He was President from 1953-1960, becoming the first and only army general to serve as President in the 20th Century, formally becoming a civilian during his term in office. He ended the Korean War and offered peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in 1953. He authorized the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. He invited Nikita Khrushchev to his first visit to the US in 1959, and hosted him at his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where his children and grandchildren met the family of the Soviet leader. Shortly after that, however, the Soviets shot down an American U2 spy plane, captured the pilot and canceled Eisenhower's reciprocal visit to the Soviet Union. Relations between the two superpowers deteriorated very quickly, leading to an increasingly rapid nuclear arms race and a dangerous standoff in the Cold War.

Domestically, Eisenhower began the modernization and integration of American roads into the interstate highway system, modeled after the autobahn, which he saw in Germany. In spite of some serious setbacks with US-Soviet relations, overall his presidency was a successful example of a non-partisan approach to politics.

After his presidential term expired (US Presidents can only serve two terms), Eisenhower was again commissioned a five-star general in the army. He lived in retirement on his farm in Gettysburg, where he wrote his memoirs. He died on Friday, March 28th, 1969, at the Army Hospital in Washington, DC, and was laid to rest in Abilene, Kansas, at the Eisenhower Presidential Library.

The complete lifetime of Dwight D. Eisenhower, was from Tuesday, October 14th, 1890, to Friday, March 28th, 1969. He lived 28,654 days, equaling 4,093 weeks & 3 days.

Chesley Sullenberger was born on 23 January 1951 in Denison, Texas, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Sully (2016), Daddy's Home 2 (2017) and Horizon (1964). He has been married to Lorrie Sullenberger since 17 June 1989. They have two children.

Jennifer McGill was born on 2 July 1977 in Denison, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for Emerald Cove (1993), The All New Mickey Mouse Club (1989) and Dreaming Reality (2022).

Sari Price was born on 9 May 1933 in Denison, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Orions belte (1985), Turnaround (1987) and The Fall Guy (1981). She was married to Mike Elliot. She died on 14 October 2003 in Oslo, Norway.

Joie Chitwood was born on 14 April 1912 in Denison, Texas, United States. He was an actor, known for Live and Let Die (1973), A Small Town in Texas (1976) and Phobia (1980). He died on 3 January 1988 in Tampa, Florida, USA.

Louise Carter was born on 17 March 1875 in Denison, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Week-End Marriage (1932), Madame Butterfly (1932) and Broken Lullaby (1932). She died on 10 November 1957 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Lee R. Mayes was born on 24 April 1946 in Denison, Texas, USA. He is a producer and production manager, known for Scary Movie (2000), Multiplicity (1996) and Scary Movie 2 (2001).

Clora Bryant was born on 30 May 1927 in Denison, Texas, USA. She was married to Joe Stone. She died on 25 August 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Julie Franklin was born on 14 August 1973 in Denison, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for Dragon Ball (1995), Dragon Ball GT (1996) and Dragon Ball (1986). She was previously married to Andrew K. Smith.

Dustin Clingan was born on 14 July 1983 in Denison, Texas, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Photographic Memory (2017), Voices of the Voiceless (2011) and Saving Morgan.

Russ Clark was born on 7 February 1893 in Denison, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Lost in the Stratosphere (1934), Men Without Names (1935) and Valley of the Zombies (1946). He died on 24 September 1960 in San Bernardino, California, USA.

Lindon Crow was born on 4 April 1933 in Denison, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for It Takes a Thief (1968), Perry Mason (1957) and Dragnet 1967 (1967). He was married to Sandy. He died on 25 October 2018 in Exeter, California, USA.

Born in Denison, Iowa, of immigrant parents from Oldenburg, Germany, Hans Koenekamp began his film career with a job as a motion picture projectionist. He became a cinematographer in 1913 at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. He later worked at Fox Films and then joined Vitagraph in 1917, where he photographed all the Larry Semon comedies. When Warner Bros. purchased First National's studio in Burbank, California, he signed a contract and remained with the studio for the next 30 years. He specialized in directing and photographing second units and producing special effects shots for the studio.

Rori Knudtson was born on 13 September 1974 in Denison, Texas, USA. She is a writer and director, known for Dead Reckoning and Spire.

Nikki MB Tworek was born on 22 May 1973 in Denison, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for Consecrated (2012), Donut Holes (2002) and Generation: Lost (2001).

Jess Ivey was born on 16 May 1903 in Denison, Texas, USA. Jess is known for Midstream (1929). Jess died on 13 August 1956 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Charles Saggau was born on 11 May 1921 in Denison, Iowa, USA. He was an actor. He died on 3 February 2013 in Orange County, California, USA.

Phil Hurley was born on 22 September 1948 in Denison, Texas, USA.

Mike Haynes was born on 1 July 1953 in Denison, Texas, USA.

Fred Washington was born on 11 July 1967 in Denison, Texas, USA.

E.S. O'Reilly was born on 15 August 1880 in Denison Grayson County Texas, USA. He was a writer, known for Shanghai Bound (1927). He died in 1946 in New York, USA.

Ryan became dedicated to comedy, performance, and filmmaking as a teenager. His first time on a film set was in 1998, when he worked as an assistant for The History Channel while they were filming prohibition-era reenactments in his hometown. Ryan began a serious study of acting in 1999 after enrolling at Grayson College to study theatre. While in college, he took public access classes at his local cable company to learn filmmaking. In 2015 he got involved with a fledgling filmmaking group called Dallas Film Crew, which grew into the Dallas Filmmakers Alliance. Through them, he edited and directed short films. Those experiences led him to return to school to further study acting and directing. He graduated from Texas A&M University-Commerce in December 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Theatre with a focus on Acting and Directing. After graduating, he enrolled in business and management school to have a combined education in show business. He has since been producing for both stage and film.