New book detailing celebrities' ties to Pittsburgh yields surprising facts
A few years ago at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, C. Prentiss Orr spied a woman who appeared to be Demi Moore. His only doubt: Why would the actress take her kids to a museum in Pittsburghâ¢
After talking to staffers at the North Side venue, he learned: First, it was Moore, and second, she grew up near Canonsburg and attended Canon-McMillan High School.
That information was in "none of her professional or unauthorized biographies," says Orr, the principal author of "Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred: 500 of the More Famous People Who Have Called Pittsburgh Home."
Thus, Moore's inclusion in the book commissioned by the Senator John Heinz History Center. Co-written with Abby Mendelson and Tripp Clarke, the book celebrates the stars and personalities who were born, raised or found their footing in Western Pennsylvania.
There are the usual subjects who have become associated with Pittsburgh: Tony Dorsett, Andrew Carnegie, Stephen Foster, David McCullough, David Conrad.
But the charm of the book, Orr admits, was finding how many people of standing had connections to the area.
Moore, for example, who Orr says had a trailer park-like existence while living in Washington County. Or John Augustus Roebling, the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, who emigrated from Prussia to Butler County and laid out the town of Saxonburg. Or Calbraith Perry Rodgers, born in Pittsburgh and the first man to fly across the continental United States -- in 1911.
The writing team started out with more than 1,000 names, winnowing those to 500 based on the criteria of whether there was a good story to tell. One unexpected theme that emerged was how much technology was created in Pittsburgh, from the genius of George Westinghouse's many inventions, to Frank Conrad, the radio pioneer.
"And then you get to the last entry, Vladimir Zworykin," Orr says.
Who⢠Zworykin, a native of Russia, emigrated to the U.S. in 1919, worked at Westinghouse's East Pittsburgh plant and invented the TV camera and cathode-ray tube, both integral to the development of television.
"At one point, we were going to do a Rube Goldberg-like chart, connecting George Westinghouse to Bill Cardille," Orr says, noting it would link the famed inventor to special effects and makeup artist Greg Nicotero, filmmaker George Romero, and Henry Mancini, whose composition "Experiment in Terror" was the theme music for Cardille's "Chiller Theater."
If there is a common thread that links the 500 personalities, Orr thinks it can be traced to childhood. Many, if not most, of the people in "Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred" found their life's pursuits at an early age.
"Look at all the jazz artists," Orr says of performers including Art Blakey, Errol Garner, Billy Strayhorn and Mary Lou Williams. "These guys and girls were doing what they did when they were 4 or 5 years old. They were committed, talented kids who found their passion early, by and large."
By the numbers
Numerical breakdown of those included in "Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred":
• 100: actors and performers
• 80-plus: musicians
• 70-plus: athletes
• 60-plus: writers
• 60-plus: leaders and pioneers from the 18th and 19th century
• 40-plus: scientists and innovators
Some notable Pittsburghers not notably from Pittsburgh
• Actor Scott Glenn was born in Churchill in 1941 and lived in Pittsburgh until the age of 12.
• David O. and Myron Selznick , movie moguls and brothers, were born in Pittsburgh, the sons of silent movie pioneer Lewis Selznick, who was a jeweler on Smithfield Street at the turn of the 20th century.
• Madalyn Murray O'Hair , the infamous atheist, was born in Beechview in 1919.
• Bret Michaels , lead singer of Poison, was born in Lyndora, Butler County, in 1963.
• Hedda Hopper , the famed Hollywood gossip columnist, was born in Holidaysburg in 1885 and attended the Carter Conservatory of Music in Pittsburgh.
• Martha Graham , the dance pioneer, was born in the North Side in 1894.
• Demi Moore , born in 1962, was a student in the Canon-McMillan School District for approximately seven years before leaving for Hollywood in the late 1970s.
• Tuskegee Airmen . Approximately 60 African-American men from the Pittsburgh area were part of the famed air corps during World War II, including Chauncey Eskridge , who later became a lawyer and counsel to Martin Luther King Jr., and Wendell Free land, whose decrying of Jim Crow laws at Freeman Field in Indiana is cited by historians as one of the first battles of the Civil Rights Movement.
Additional Information:
'Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred'
Subtitle: '500 of the More Famous People Who Have Called Pittsburgh Home'
Authors: C. Prentiss Orr, Abby Mendelson, Tripp Clarke
Publisher: The Senator John Heinz History Center; $39.95 hardback, $29.95 paperback
