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Marilyn Eastman was born in Iowa and later moved to Pittsburgh where her career with Karl Hardman ("Night" co-star and long-time colleague and companion) took off. She was a regular on several local radio shows that achieved much success, and later she and Karl formed Hardman/Eastman, Inc. They eventually joined forces with The Latent Image, Inc, another Pittsburgh company, which was headed by George A. Romero, to create the phenomenal horror classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was filmed in 1967 in and around Pittsburgh, PA and released in October 1968. Eastman not only acted in the film, she worked on make-up, props and contributed to the editing of the screenplay. Marilyn has done many industrial films with Hardman since "Night" and has worked on commercials as well as in theater. She appeared in the Night of the Living Dead: 25th Anniversary (1993) video that chronicled the film's incredible history and success.

Tony Lip (born Frank Anthony Vallelonga) was raised in the Bronx, New York. He worked for twelve years at the world-famous Copacabana Nightclub in New York City. At the Copa, he played host to the most famous personalities of the era, including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Bobby Darin. Lip then went on to a career in acting. He got his first big break when he was cast in the hit film, The Godfather. He then appeared in several major motion pictures including Crazy Joe, The Pope of Greenwich Village, The Year of the Dragon, Honor Thy Fathers, Goodfellas, and Donnie Brasco. He was most recently featured as the New York mob boss Carmine Lupertazzi on the hit HBO series, The Sopranos. He also added "author" to his credits. In his book "Shut Up and Eat!" Lip shares personal stories as well as his family's favorite Italian recipes. He gathered his favorite Italian-America actors and friends, including Danny Aiello, James Gandolfini, Chazz Palmintieri and Joe Mantegna to do the same. For the first time ever, these actors-stars of such hits as The Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, Moonstruck, The Sopranos, and A Bronx Tale-shared their families' secret recipes. Plus told tell their own stories of growing up as Italian-Americans. This delightful cookbook, full of photos, personal stories, and favorite recipes, shows why preparing and sharing an Italian meal is a truly rich experience.

In 2018, a film depicting Tony's road trip and friendship with Don Shirley, Green Book (2018), was released, with Viggo Mortensen as Tony, in an Academy Award for Best Actor-nominated performance.

The son of a steel worker from Beaver Falls, Pa., Joseph William Namath (Joe Willie) came from the rich football tradition that is in Pennsylvania. After starring for Paul 'Bear' Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide teams in the 1960s, Namath was drafted by both the National Football League's (NFL) St. Louis Cardinals and the rival American Football League's (AFL) New York Jets in 1965. Namath, known as a brash performer in college, signed with the Jets for a then-record $450,000 and gave the upstart, struggling AFL instant credibility in its war with the NFL. Although he didn't turn the Jets into instant winners, he did improve their fortunes his first three years in the league. Namath delivered on his promise as one of the most exciting players in the AFL, by becoming the first quarterback in history to pass for more than 4,000 yards. Namath was also popular off the field, especially with the ladies (which he indulged in, happily) and was known for his love of the New York nightlife. Because of this, he was dubbed "Broadway Joe" by the New York press. Namath gained his legend with not only his performance, but his mouth. After leading the Jets to the AFL championship over the Oakland Raiders, Namath, weary of all the press knocking him and his team and openly favoring the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, boldly lashed out and predicted victory for him and the Jets. He also showed his poise by talking his way out of a potentially explosive situation with Colts' Defensive Tackle, Lou Michaels. Namath and a teammate were in a restaurant talking about how the Jets were a better team than the Colts, when Michaels (who was in earshot) challenged Namath. The cocky QB, instead, bought Michaels dinner, drinks and gave him a ride home. In the game that many felt made the Super Bowl the spectacle it is today, Namath and the Jets were nearly flawless in beating the 17-point favorite Colts, 16-7. Namath became a household name and gave the Jets and the AFL the respectability they were so desperate to have. Namath continued his all-star performances in New York, although he never again played in the Super Bowl. For several years, he was the entertainer of the NFL (the AFL merged with the NFL in 1970) and even dabbled in movies and television (including a memorable performance in pantyhose for a commercial). He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in 1977, but his failing knees finally gave out and he retired at the end of the season. Namath was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985 and, for a few years, was a member of ABC's NFL Monday Night Football (1970) crew. Namath now lives in Florida.

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on the Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.

In 1919, Betty was signed by writer-director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard. From 1921, Betty also owned her own production company. She went on to make several films in England between 1923 and 1924 for the director Graham Cutts.

During the late 1920's, Betty appeared in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles. She received good reviews acting opposite George Bancroft as a waterfront prostitute in The Docks of New York (1928), and was even nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a carnival girl in The Barker (1928). She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO's first sound film, Street Girl (1929), and was briefly under contract to that studio, cast in so-called 'women's pictures' such as The Lady Refuses (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931).

The stature of her roles began to diminish from the mid 1930s, though she continued to act in character parts until 1948.

Betty's personal fortunes also declined. This came about primarily as a result of her marital contract to the alcoholic Cruze, whom she had divorced in 1929. For several years, Cruze had failed to pay his income tax and Betty (linked financially to Cruze) ended up being sued by the federal government to the tune of $150,000. This forced her to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques.

In later years, Betty Compson developed her own cosmetics label and ran a business in California producing personalized ashtrays for the hospitality industry.

Amber Mariano was born on 11 August 1978 in Beaver, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for Survivor (2000), The Amazing Race (2001) and Hollywood Squares (1998). She has been married to Rob Mariano since 16 April 2005. They have four children.

Amber Ardolino was born on 22 August 1993 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for In the Heights (2021), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) and Elsbeth (2024).

Bobby Hatfield was born on 10 August 1940 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for Feeling Minnesota (1996), Cheers (1982) and Twenty-One (1991). He was married to Linda Jean Torrison and Alberta Joy Colsant (Joy Ciro). He died on 5 November 2003 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA.

Josh Berresford was born on 11 July 1978 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for Set It Up (2018), Dante's Cove (2004) and Aleksandr's Price (2013).

Kenny Easterday was born in 1974 in West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania with only half a spine, a condition known as sacral agenesis. When he was six months old both of his underdeveloped legs were amputated and the bones were used to reconstruct his spine. He gained some notoriety following the 1988 release of the Canadian movie The Kid Brother (1988), in which he played a fictionalized version of himself. The film developed a small "cult" following in Canada, the US and the UK. To this day, Easterday refuses to use a prosthesis, preferring to walk on his hands or roll around on a skateboard. He was married at the age of 19 to an able-bodied woman named Sarah and often appears on camera as a messenger on The Jerry Springer Show.

Dorothy Best was born on 8 February 1948 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), Death Mask (1998) and General Electric Theater (1953). She was previously married to James Best.

Roy Wells Gordon was the third of four sons born to John W. Gordon and Nancy Ellen Wells Gordon. He was born October 18, 1884 in Beaver Village, Pike County, Ohio. The family soon moved to Portsmouth, Ohio, where Roy grew up. He was always interested in the theater and acting, and decided to make it his profession. In the 1910s, 20s, and early 30s, he performed in dramas and musicals (he was a tenor) in Portsmouth, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois, and on Broadway in New York City. In the late 1930s, Roy moved to Los Angeles, California to become a motion-picture actor; this was his profession for the rest of his life. He performed as a supporting actor in a wide variety of credited and uncredited roles; in his later years, he often played bankers, businessmen, judges, senior military officers and other men of authority. He also performed in numerous TV series. He died at the age of 87 on July 23, 1972 in Encino, Los Angeles County, California.

Ashley Rae was born on 1 November 1995 in Beaver, Pennsylvania, USA. Ashley is an actor and writer, known for Macabre Mountain (2023), Special Delivery (2023) and Please Stop.

Jon was a professional actor, writer and director in New York and L.A. for 26 years. In the mid-80's, he was acknowledged as one of the most recognizable commercial talents by Ad Age Magazine. Some of his most notable campaigns were, Herb for BURGER KING, the "Same Old Same Old" man for ARBY'S, Louie the Lip for RC COLA, the comic spokesman for MAZDA, ATT, NYNEX, IBM, DIMETAPP and SUBARU to name just a few. He practiced his craft in the top film market in the world. He appeared with stars like Mel Gibson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bruce Willis, Cloris Leachman, Elijah Woods and Lily Tomlin among others, as well as guest starring on TV shows including "Night Court", "Moonlighting," Mel Brook's "Nutthouse," J.A.G. "Murphy Brown" and "The Twilight Zone. This singular experience has sharpened his approach to story creation and elevated his standards to match the level of the high profile practitioners that populate the art of filmed storytelling. Retiring from acting in 2001, Jon and his wife Louisa moved to pursue a new creative life in Asheville, NC. Combining his interest in writing and film production, with his B.A in political history from the University of Georgia, he ventured into the world of media concepts in 2001. Projects include The Asheville School Movie, the Snap-On Tools interactive video web campaign "ain'tstreetlegal.com" and the new film "Magic in the Forest", a fable designed to inspire children to reconnect with nature.

At 13 years old, Barracchini began writing and shooting short films with his mother's camcorder, casting his siblings and cousins in the productions. While studying film at then La Roche College and the former Pittsburgh Filmmakers school, he shot 16-millimeter film and digital video, honing the techniques he would later use to make additional shorts and even a historical fiction series. These films would be recognized at a number of national and international film festivals. Outside of his independent filmmaking, Barracchini has worked in the film industry in numerous positions on various TV shows and feature films from studios such as Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount.

The turning point in Barracchini's career occurred when he collaborated with actor and writer, Kathleen Regan, on the feature film Godless Children (2024) which the pair co-wrote and Regan starred in. His first feature brought a new angle to the complexities of relationships when met with nefarious obstacles. The film went on to be recognized not only for its screenplay, which was recognized in several festivals, but also for the finished film where it received a nomination for Best Feature Film at the Lonely Wolf International Film Festival.

Barracchini also has his own production company, Rumination Images.

Nelson Fair was born on 19 September 1922 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He was an actor, known for Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Fantasy Island (1977). He was married to Electra Gailas. He died on 24 October 1980 in Hawaii, USA.

Don Kennedy began his radio career in 1943 with a half-watt homemade radio station in the basement of his mother and father's home in his native Beaver, Pennsylvania. His first paying position was in 1947 as an announcer at WPIC in Sharon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Youngstown, Ohio. While in college, he announced news, sports scores and did music programs at WBVP in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. After military service as a radio studio manager in a psychological warfare unit during the Korean War, he anchored the eleven o'clock news at WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia eventually being assigned as a children's show host at that station, a program amassing the largest audience of any such local program in the nation. In 1960 he established WKLS-FM in Atlanta, serving as President and GM. He also set up and served as President of Georgia Network and Florida Network, two of the pioneer state news networks in the nation. In 1976 his company returned Atlanta's channel 36, WATL-TV to the air. He is the recipient of the Silver Circle Award and two Emmys from the Atlanta Chapter of NATAS, the Pioneer Broadcaster and Georgia Broadcaster's Hall of Fame awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters and honorary membership in the Di Gamma Kappa Broadcast Fraternity at the University of Georgia. He has been President of the Georgia Chapter of Muscular Dystrophy, treasurer of the Atlanta Humane Society and board member of the Atlanta Cancer Society. In recent years, Kennedy has been network coordinator for the Atlanta Braves radio network, the Georgia Tech Football and Basketball networks. He syndicated a now defunct weekly BIG BAND JUMP radio program. AT one time BBJ was heard on one hundred stations in thirty-two states, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He is also the voice of several cartoon characters on cable's Cartoon Network and narrator for award winning documentaries seen on the nine television stations of Georgia Public Television. He is also a regular volunteer reader for the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the Blind. Don resides in Atlanta.

James Hickman was born on 12 February 1932 in Beaver, Utah, USA. He is an actor, known for The Cardinal (1963), Great Ghost Tales (1961) and The DuPont Show of the Month (1957).

David was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where he received his BA in Theatre. He was nominated for the National Irene Ryan Acting Award at the American College Theatre Festival and was subsequently named an Alumni of Notable Achievement by the University of Minnesota. David is the veteran of over 500 television and radio commercials and more than 75 professional stage productions in addition to his film and TV credits. He was the producer and host of "Northwoods Magazine," a weekly Wisconsin outdoors television program. He taught, wrote, directed, designed, created scenic art and performed for nearly a decade at the Palmdale Playhouse in Palmdale, California for dozens of productions including directing the World Premiers of "Johnny Yuma, The Rebel at Appomattox" by Andrew J. Fenady, and "Tricker's Treat" which David also wrote and performed in. David continues to work as a writer, designer, director, producer, actor, and musician in theatrical productions at various professional venues around the country, and guest stars in television programs and motion pictures.

Farnsworth and his team produced the first all-electronic TV picture on 7 September, 1927. At 14, while plowing on the family farm, he was inspired by looking at the harrow lines in the field he had just completed. From there, the concept developed of magnetically deflecting electrons in rows across a screen to create an image. He told his first serious girlfriend about this idea, and she responded by promptly dumping him. After regaining his confidence, he took another girl, Elma (who he eventually married) on a horseback ride to the nearby Bridal Veil Falls, where he again confided his concept of electronic imagery. Elma expressed her belief in him and offered to assist in any way. And she did, by doing laboratory work and keeping Philo's patent books current.

Joanie Dodds was born on 20 September 1981 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for Bigfoot the Movie (2015), Lone Star Trixie (2011) and Run My Renovation (2010). She has been married to Chris Sprague since 19 September 2015. They have one child.

Ray Felton was born on 18 February 1947 in Beaver, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Cecil B. Demented (2000), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) and The New Detectives: Case Studies in Forensic Science (1996). He was married to Rosemary Helmicki. He died on 29 June 2006 in Leesburg, Virginia, USA.

Dan Rosenberg was born on 28 August 1970 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Dan Rosenberg: OverExposed (2020), Schmucks! (2001) and P Lo's House (2010).

Wilbur Pauley was born on 11 October 1955 in Beaver, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for Enchanted (2007), Pocahontas (1995) and Disenchanted (2022).

Rian Garrick was born on 29 October 1935 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for Battle of the Coral Sea (1959), Edge of Eternity (1959) and The Flying Fontaines (1959).

Born in Beaver, Utah, during World War I, it was not until the next World War that Lawrence Marcus found his niche as a writer. Serving in the Army Air Force, he found that he had a knack for writing and began scripting radio shows. The irony of discovering himself applying skills that are usually honed and developed only after one receives the traditional high school diploma and a degree or two from a reputable university, of course, lay in the fact that while growing up in Chicago, Marcus had gone only as far as the eighth grade in school. In his fifty-year writing career, he also found that he had a knack for award-winning scripts. He received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the 1980 "Stunt Man." His writing also garnered the Writers Guild of America Award, the Golden Globe, a Christopher Award, and an Alfred Sloan Award. One of his best remembered works is his 1968 adaptation for Richard Lester of the John Hasse novel "Me and the Arch Kook Petulia." "Petulia," the title of the resulting movie, starred George C. Scott and Julie Christie and is consider by many one of the ten best movies of the decade. Interestingly, Marcus attempted to bow out of working on the script. He became frustrated and disappointed with his efforts and, after the first thirty-five pages, sent what he had to Richard Lester with a letter of resignation. Lester immediately wired Marcus: "Love the pages; hated the letter, work." He also experienced disappointments in his writing when he collaborated on a screenplay with Jim Morrison of The Doors fame. But this time, unlike the reaction Richard Lester supplied, Morrison destroyed the script and the project. Throughout his career he collaborated with Douglas Fairbanks III, Rosalind Russell, lived in Rome, where he developed feature films, traveled to South Africa for a story on diamond mining. His final project was work on a early 1990s project for Universal Studios and Paul Newman, tentatively entitled "Homesman." In the 1980s, helping others achieve heights (i.e. degrees) that had eluded him, he taught screenwriting at New York University. Not bad for a man with only an eighth grade education.