Portal:Biography
The Biography Portal
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.
An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. (Full article...)
Featured biographies –
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
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Walter de Coventre (died 1371 or 1372) was a 14th-century Scottish ecclesiastic. There is no direct evidence of his birthdate, his family, or his family's origin, although he may have come from the region around Abernethy (in modern-day Perth and Kinross), where a family with the name de Coventre is known to have lived. Walter appeared in the records for the first time in the 1330s, as a student at the University of Paris. From there he went on to the University of Orléans, initially as a student before becoming a lecturer there. He studied the arts, civil law and canon law, and was awarded many university degrees, including two doctorates. His studies were paid for, at least partially, by his benefices in Scotland. Despite holding perhaps more than five benefices at one stage, he did not return to Scotland until the late 1350s.
Following his return to Scotland, Walter soon became Dean of Aberdeen Cathedral. From there he became engaged in high-level ecclesiastical affairs with the Scottish church and political affairs with the Earl of Mar. Sometime before June 1361, the cathedral chapter of Dunblane elected him Bishop of Dunblane. He went to France to secure confirmation from the Pope at Avignon, who authorised his consecration. Walter was bishop for 10 years after returning home to Scotland. Records of his episcopate are thin, but there are enough to allow a modest reconstruction of his activities: he presided over legal disputes, issued a dispensation for an important irregular marriage, attended parliaments, and acted as an envoy of the Scottish crown in England. He died in either 1371 or 1372. (Full article...)
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress and producer. Lawrence is known for starring in both action film franchises and independent dramas, and her films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. The world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016, she appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world list in 2013 and the Forbes Celebrity 100 list from 2013 to 2016.
Lawrence began her career as a teenager with guest roles on television. Her first major role was as a main cast member on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007–2009). She made her film debut with a supporting role in the drama Garden Party (2008) and had her breakthrough playing a poverty-stricken teenager in the independent film Winter's Bone (2010). Lawrence gained stardom portraying the mutant Mystique in the X-Men film series (2011–2019) and Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015). The latter made her the highest-grossing action heroine. (Full article...)
Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished American football player. Born into a prominent family from the Philadelphia area, he enrolled at Princeton University in 1910. Baker excelled on the university's hockey and football teams, and became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York City. He was a member of three national championship teams, for football in 1911 and hockey in 1912 and 1914, and helped the St. Nicholas Club win a national amateur championship in 1915. Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service. During World War I he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before being promoted to captain and named commander of the 141st Aero Squadron. Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.
Baker was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best athletes of his time and is considered one of the best early American hockey players. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, Baker was named one of the first nine inductees, the only American among them. In 1973, he became one of the initial inductees in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, and is the only person to be in both the hockey and college football halls of fame. (Full article...)
Princess Helena (Helena Augusta Victoria; 25 May 1846 – 9 June 1923), later Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, was the third daughter and fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Helena was educated by private tutors chosen by her father and his close friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar. Her childhood was spent with her parents, travelling between a variety of royal residences in Britain. The intimate atmosphere of the royal court came to an end on 14 December 1861, when her father died and her mother entered a period of intense mourning. Afterwards, in the early 1860s, Helena began a flirtation with Prince Albert's German librarian, Carl Ruland. Although the nature of the relationship is largely unknown, Helena's romantic letters to Ruland survive. After her mother discovered the flirtations, in 1863, she dismissed Ruland, who returned to his native Germany. Three years later, on 5 July 1866, Helena married the impoverished Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. The couple remained in Britain, in calling distance of the queen, who liked to have her daughters nearby. Helena, along with her youngest sister, Princess Beatrice, became the queen's unofficial secretary. However, after Queen Victoria's death on 22 January 1901, Helena saw relatively little of her surviving siblings. (Full article...)
On the night of 5 April 1944, Siegfried Lederer, a Czech Jew, escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp wearing an SS-TV uniform provided by SS-Rottenführer Viktor Pestek. Pestek opposed the Holocaust; he was a devout Catholic and was infatuated with Renée Neumann, a Jewish prisoner. Pestek accompanied Lederer out of the camp, and the two men traveled together to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to obtain false documents for Neumann and her mother.
Lederer, a former Czechoslovak Army officer and member of the Czech resistance, tried unsuccessfully to warn the Jews at Theresienstadt Ghetto about the mass murders at Auschwitz. He and Pestek returned to Auschwitz in an attempt to rescue Neumann and her mother. Pestek was arrested under disputed circumstances and later executed. Lederer returned to occupied Czechoslovakia, where he rejoined the resistance movement and attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war he remained in Czechoslovakia. The story of the escape was retold by Lederer and writers including historian Erich Kulka. (Full article...)
Learie Nicholas Constantine, Baron Constantine (21 September 1901 – 1 July 1971) was a Trinidadian cricketer, lawyer and politician who served as Trinidad and Tobago's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and became the UK's first black peer. He played 18 Test matches for the West Indies before the Second World War and took the team's first wicket in Test cricket. An advocate against racial discrimination, in later life he was influential in the passing of the 1965 Race Relations Act in Britain. He was knighted in 1962 and made a life peer in 1969.
Born in Trinidad, Constantine established an early reputation as a promising cricketer, and was a member of the West Indies teams that toured England in 1923 and 1928. Unhappy at the lack of opportunities for black people in Trinidad, he decided to pursue a career as a professional cricketer in England, and during the 1928 tour was awarded a contract with the Lancashire League club Nelson. He played for the club with distinction between 1929 and 1938, while continuing as a member of the West Indies Test team in tours of England and Australia. Although his record as a Test cricketer was less impressive than in other cricket, he helped to establish a uniquely West Indian style of play. He was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1939. (Full article...)
Lieutenant General Sir Frank Horton Berryman, KCVO, CB, CBE, DSO (11 April 1894 – 28 May 1981) was an Australian Army officer who served as a general during the Second World War. The son of an engine driver, he entered Duntroon in 1913. His class graduated early after the First World War broke out, and he served on the Western Front with the field artillery. After the war, he spent nearly twenty years as a major.
Berryman joined the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 4 April 1940 with the rank of full colonel, and became General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO1) of the 6th Division. He was responsible for the staff work for the attacks on Bardia and Tobruk. In January 1941, Berryman became Commander, Royal Artillery, 7th Division, and was promoted to brigadier. During the Syria-Lebanon campaign, he commanded "Berryforce". He returned to Australia in 1942, becoming Major General, General Staff, of the First Army. Later that year, he became Deputy Chief of the General Staff under the Commander in Chief, General Sir Thomas Blamey, who brought him up to Port Moresby to simultaneously act as chief of staff of New Guinea Force. Berryman was intimately involved with the planning and execution of the Salamaua–Lae campaign and the Huon Peninsula campaign. In November 1943 he became acting commander of II Corps, which he led in the Battle of Sio. In the final part of the war, he was Blamey's representative at General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's headquarters and the Australian Army representative at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. (Full article...)
Herman Cyril McNeile, MC (28 September 1888 – 14 August 1937), commonly known as Cyril McNeile and publishing under the name H. C. McNeile or the pseudonym Sapper, was a British soldier and author. Drawing on his experiences in the trenches during the First World War, he started writing short stories and getting them published in the Daily Mail. As serving officers in the British Army were not permitted to publish under their own names, he was given the pen name "Sapper" by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail; the nickname was based on that of his corps, the Royal Engineers.
After the war McNeile left the army and continued writing, although he changed from war stories to thrillers. In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation. The character was based on McNeile himself, on his friend Gerard Fairlie and on English gentlemen generally. McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay. (Full article...)
After the war McNeile left the army and continued writing, although he changed from war stories to thrillers. In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation. The character was based on McNeile himself, on his friend Gerard Fairlie and on English gentlemen generally. McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay. (Full article...)
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician. He is best known as the lead singer and one of the founder members of the Rolling Stones. Jagger has co-written most of the band's songs with lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in rock music history. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential front men in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Early in his career, Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.
Jagger was born and grew up in Dartford. He studied at the London School of Economics before abandoning his studies to focus on his career with the Rolling Stones. In the late 1960s, Jagger starred in the films Performance (1970) and Ned Kelly (1970), to mixed receptions. Beginning in the 1980s, he released a number of solo works, including four albums and the single "Dancing in the Street", a 1985 duet with David Bowie that reached No. 1 in the UK and Australia and was a top-ten hit in other countries. (Full article...)
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