Scorpio Celebrities

Charles Atlas (1893-1972) embodied the nineteenth-century ideal of the self-made man--a dream of self-improvement and rapid transformation that began with a strengthened, healthy body. By 1942, more than 400,000 copies of the Atlas program of self-development had been sold.

Charles Atlas died in 1972, but today his courses are still sold to over 70,000 people worldwide, translated into seven different languages. They still retail at $30 cash or $35 credit, just as they did when he began in 1922. The American astronomer and popularizer of science Carl E. Sagan (1934-1996) studied the surfaces and atmospheres of the major planets, conducted experiments on the origins of life on earth, made important contributions to the debate over the environmental consequences of nuclear war, and wrote a number of popular books explaining developments in astronomy, biology, and psychology.

Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life , including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. A professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell Univ. after 1968, he was involved with numerous NASA planetary space probes and was the creator and host of the 1980 public television science series Cosmos. His publications include The Dragons of Eden (1977; Pulitzer); a novel, Contact (1985); with Richard Turco, A Path Where No Man Thought (1990), on nuclear winter; with Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1992); Pale Blue Dot (1994); and The Demon-Haunted World (1995). The Welsh poet Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914-1953) has been acclaimed as one of the most important poets of the century. His lyrics rank among the most powerful and captivating of modern poetry.

An extraordinarily individualistic writer, Thomas is ranked among the great 20th-century poets. He grew up in Swansea, the son of a teacher, but left school at 17 to become a journalist and moved to London two years later. His Eighteen Poems, published in 1934, created controversy but won him immediate fame, which grew with the publication of Twenty-five Poems (1936), The Map of Love (1939; containing poetry and surrealistic prose), The World I Breathe (1939; also containing some prose), Deaths and Entrances (1946), and In Country Sleep and Other Poems (1952). Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (1917-1984), a prime minister of India, was the most effective and powerful politician of her day in that country. Throughout her celebrated career, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) used her rich, forceful voice and inspiring interpretations of spirituals to move audiences around the world to tears of joy. In the early days, as a soloist and member of church choirs, she recognized the power of song as a means of gloriously reaffirming the faith of her flock. And later, as a world figure, her natural gift brought people of different religious and political convictions together to revel in the beauty of the gospels and to appreciate the warm spirit that underscored the way she lived her life.

Deeply committed to the civil-rights movement, she was closely associated with the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The African American minister and Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), originated the nonviolence strategy within the activist civil rights movement. He was one of the most important black leaders of his era.

He was elected president of the organization responsible for the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was also a founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Dr. King's speech at the march on Washington in 1963, his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize, his last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and his final speech in Memphis are among his most famous utterances (I've Been to the Mountaintop). The Letter from Birmingham Jail ranks among the most important American documents.

Dr. King was shot in April 1968 at a motel where he was trying to mediate a garbage workers' strike. James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder, but he has always declared his innocence, suggesting a conspiracy and government cover-up. The Spanish painter, sculptor, and graphic artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most prodigious and revolutionary artists in the history of Western painting. As the central figure in developing cubism, he established the basis for abstract art.

He is also generally considered in his technical virtuosity, enormous versatility, and incredible originality and prolificity to have been the foremost figure in 20th-century art. Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968), a U.S. senator and the attorney general in the administration of his brother John F. Kennedy, was assassinated during his 1968 race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr., (born 1916) was an American journalist and radio and television news broadcaster who became preeminent among the outstanding group of correspondents and commentators developed by CBS News after World War II.

After joining United Press in 1939 he served as a war correspondent (1942–45) and reporter at the Nuremberg trials. He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1950, where he covered (1952) the first televised presidential nominating conventions and in 1962 became managing editor and anchorman of “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.” In 1981, he stepped down from that role and became a special correspondent for CBS News. His books include Challenges of Change (1971) and a memoir (1996). One of the most celebrated humorists and public figures of his day, Will Rogers (1879-1935) offered dry, whimsical commentaries on a plethora of political, social, and economic issues. His aphoristic, satirical observations, which he voiced in magazine articles and nationally syndicated columns, revealed the foibles and injustices of American society and reaffirmed the humorist's role as the voice of the "average" citizen.

In his youth he worked as a cowboy in Oklahoma, and after traveling over the world, he returned to the United States and worked in vaudeville as a cowboy rope-twirler, joking casually with the audience. He was an immediate success when he joined the Ziegfeld Follies in 1915. Rogers gained a wide audience through motion pictures, books, the radio, and a syndicated newspaper column. His salty comments on the political and social scene made the “cowboy philosopher” widely known. A constant booster of airplane travel, Rogers made several long airplane trips; he was killed with Wiley Post when their plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.