Birth Locations – Page 107 – The Exasperated Historian

323) Juliette Lewis

323: Juliette Lewis

Actress and Singer

Born: 21 June 1973, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

She is known for her roles in films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and Whip It.

Juliette took six years off of acting to pursue a music career, but eventually returned to Hollywood. She released two albums during that time and toured with her band Juliette & The Licks. They even appeared at Vans Warped Tour 2004.

She has no children, but according to her IMDb page was legally emancipated from her own parents at the age of fourteen, years after she'd begun her acting career.

Earlier in life, she dated Brad Pitt for four years, despite their ten year age difference (she was reportedly sixteen and he twenty-six when they began dating). She later went on to marry a professional skateboarder (they divorced but are still friends).

She is also reportedly a very outspoken defender of the Church of Scientology.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000496/bio

https://www.biography.com/actor/juliette-lewis

322) Meira Kumar

322: Meira Kumar

The First Female Speaker of Lok Sabha—the Lower House of Indian Parliament

Born: 31 March 1945, Patna, India

She served in that position from 2009 to 2014.

Meira is a politician and diplomat.

She was born into a political Dalit Family (Dalit means untouchable—today they are called Scheduled Caste), but obviously didn’t let that stop her. Her father served as Deputy Prime Minister of India.

Meira led several initiatives as speaker including trying to reduce the amount of paper used in India and helping to combat violence against women.

In 2017, she was the United Progressive Alliance nominee for president, but she was not elected to the position.

In 2019, Meira’s son Anshul Kumar was one of two appointed to serve as a national spokesperson of the All India Congress Committee, showing that politics definitely runs in the family.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meira-Kumar

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/congress-national-spokesperson-sharmistha-mukherjee-anshul-meira-kumar-1597217-2019-09-09

321) Hattie McDaniel

321: Hattie McDaniel

Actress, Singer-songwriter and Comedian

Born: 10 June 1895, Wichita, Kansas, United States of America

Died: 26 October 1952, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Hattie is most known for her role in Gone With the Wind—notably because she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role—the first person of African American descent to win an Oscar (in 1940).

During World War II, she supported and organized entertainment for African American troops.

After the war she was blacklisted from Hollywood for protesting her typecast roles and ended up the first African American to star in a weekly radio show instead.

Hattie suffered a heart attack and then died from breast cancer a few months later.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Backwards and In Heels by Alicia Malone

Sources:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mcdaniel-hattie-1895-1952/

https://www.biography.com/actor/hattie-mcdaniel

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1367/hattie-mcdaniel

320) Zoë Saldana

320: Zoë Saldana

Actress, Model, and Dancer

Born: 19 June 1978, Passaic, New Jersey, United States of America

Original Name: Zoë Yadira Saldaña Nazario

Zoë spent the first ten years of her life in New York but the next seven years growing up in the Dominican Republic.

Before she acted, Zoë danced with the Faces Theatre Troupe, their dances focused on spreading positive messages and raising awareness for things like substance abuse and other issues.

Zoë has modeled for companies like Gap, Avon, and Calvin Klein.

She has acted in franchises spanning Pirates of the Caribbean to Star Trek to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to James Cameron’s Avatar, and even animated flicks like The Book of Life.

Zoë has three sons: twins first then another with her husband. A fun fact about them is that her husband took her surname, Saldana, when they married.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0757855/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.biography.com/actor/zoe-saldana

319) Anneliese Michel

319: Anneliese Michel

Exorcism Victim

Born: 21 September 1952, Leiblfing, Germany

Died: 1 July 1976, Klingenberg am Main, Germany

In 1975 and 1976, Anneliese underwent a Catholic Exorcism and ended up dying from lack of medical care. She was malnourished and dehydrated at the time of her death leading her parents and the priests who were in charge of her care to be charged with negligent homicide.

As of 2019, three movies have been based on her story.

When Anneliese was sixteen, she was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy and was treated at a psychiatric facility.

By the time she was twenty she had become “intolerant” to religious objects and started to hear voices.

Anneliese became suicidal despite being on medication and reportedly agreed with her family members that she was possessed by demons.

She and her family requested an exorcism (which was initially rejected). Two priests performed sixty-seven rites on her in secret for nine months; eventually she passed from malnutrition, weighing just sixty-eight pounds.

Anneliese’s parents and the priests were given three years’ probation and a fine after being charged with causing her death.

In 2005, her mother, who was still living in the house where Anneliese died, said she did not regret her daughter’s death.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1504158/God-told-us-to-exorcise-my-daughters-demons.-I-dont-regret-her-death.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11381816/anneliese-michel

318) Ellen DeGeneres

318: Ellen DeGeneres

Comedian, Actress, Television Host, Writer, and Producer

Born: 26 January 1958, Metairie, Louisiana, United States of America

Ellen is known for her sitcom Ellen (1994-1998) and her talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Her voice is also known famously for portraying everyone’s lovable blue fish friend Dory in the Finding Nemo Franchise.

Her sitcom was famously canceled after both the character and Ellen herself in real life came out as lesbian.

As of 2018, Forbes estimated Ellen’s net worth in the ballpark of $275 Million.

Today Ellen is happily married to her wife Portia de Rossi. They have several fur babies together.

Badges Earned:

Located In My Personal Library:

Time Magazine's 100 Women of the Year (Ellen appears in the 1997 article, "Ellen DeGeneres”)

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001122/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.biography.com/media-figure/ellen-degeneres

317) Jodie Foster

317: Jodie Foster

Academy Award Winning Actress, Producer, and Director

Born: 19 November 1962, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Original Name: Alicia Christian Foster

Jodie is most known for her role as Clarisse in the The Silence of the Lambs. She used to work a lot more as an actress but has slowed down as she aged. In one of her more scandalous roles, she portrayed a twelve year-old prostitute in Taxi Driver when she herself was still underage.

Jodie is also remembered for being the subject of a delusional man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan to win her love.

She is reportedly fluent in both French and Italian.

Jodie keeps her private life just that, private, but in 2014 she married Alexandra Hedison, a photographer. She also has two children that she shares with former partner Cydney Bernard.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000149/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jodie-Foster

316) Heidi Fleiss

316: Heidi Fleiss

Former Madam, Columnist, and Television Personality

Born: 30 December 1965, Los Feliz, California, United States of America

She reportedly dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, but that never seemed to slow her down.

Heidi was known as the Hollywood Madam because she provided prostitutes to high class men in the silver city like Charlie Sheen among many others.

She was charged with pandering in 1993 and her little black book of clients became as infamous as her (but to this day she’s never revealed the contents).

Heidi’s California conviction was overturned on appeal, but she was then tried in Federal Court and received a thirty-seven-month sentence for tax evasion and money laundering.

After her conviction and sentence were carried out, she continued to have big plans for herself, including opening a legally run brothel in Nevada and a clothing boutique in LA. She has also reportedly been barred from entering Canada because of her conviction.

Sources:

https://www.biography.com/personality/heidi-fleiss

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004926/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

315) Janet Yellen

Courtesy of Berkeley Haas-University of California, Berkeley

315: Janet Yellen

Money, Money, Money, Money…Money

Born: 13 August 1946, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America

Janet is an economist at the Brookings Institution and former chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She was the first woman to ever run “The Fed”.

Before that, she served as Vice Chair from 2010 to 2014.

Janet was also president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for six years.

She holds a doctorate in economics from Yale.

Janet is married to a man who is a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

In 2020, Joe Biden announced that, should be become president of the United States, he would move to make Janet the first female Secretary of the United States Treasury. If the Senate confirms her, Janet will indeed become the first woman to take that Cabinet position. In 2021, Janet was confirmed as the Treasury Secretary.

Sources:

https://www.brookings.edu/experts/janet-l-yellen/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Janet-Yellen

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55136504

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/25/senate-confirms-janet-yellen-as-first-female-treasury-secretary/

314) Condoleezza Rice

314: Condoleezza Rice

Politician, Diplomat, and Former Secretary of State to the United States

Born: 14 November 1954, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

She holds a bachelor’s, master’s, and a doctoral degree in Political science. After earning these degrees, she began teaching at Stanford University.

Condoleezza was the first African American woman to serve in the position of Secretary of State. Four years earlier, in 2000, she became the first African American woman to hold the position of National Security Advisor, both positions were under President George W Bush.

She was also the first woman and the first person of African descent to serve as Provost of Stanford University, and returned to teaching there after her positions in the US Cabinet ended.

In her spare time, Condoleezza plays the piano and golfs. Her golfing career also led to a first—in 2012 she became one of the first women admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club, which had excluded women for over eighty years.

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/condoleezza-rice

https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/rice-condoleezza