The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#15601
Jack Nelson
1882 - 1948 (66 years)
Jack Nelson was an American actor and film director of the silent era. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1910 and 1935. He also directed 58 films between 1920 and 1935. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee and died in North Bay, Ontario, Canada.
Go to Profile#15602
George Pepper
1903 - 1962 (59 years)
George Douglas Pepper was a Canadian artist. Biography Born in Ottawa, he studied with J.E.H. MacDonald and J. W. Beatty in Toronto, going on to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. He was strongly influenced by the Group of Seven.
Go to Profile#15603
Geraldine Farrar
1882 - 1967 (85 years)
Alice Geraldine Farrar was an American lyric soprano who could also sing dramatic roles. She was noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".
Go to Profile#15604
Matty Malneck
1903 - 1981 (78 years)
Matthew Michael "Matty" Malneck was an American jazz violinist, songwriter, and arranger. Career Born in 1903, Malneck's career as a violinist began when he was age 16. He was a member of the Paul Whiteman orchestra from 1926 to 1937 and during the same period recorded with Mildred Bailey, Annette Hanshaw, Frank Signorelli, and Frankie Trumbauer. He led a big band that recorded for Brunswick, Columbia, and Decca. His orchestra provided music for The Charlotte Greenwood Show on radio in the mid-1940s and Campana Serenade in 1942–1943.
Go to Profile#15605
Richard Williams
1931 - 1985 (54 years)
Richard Gene Williams was an American jazz trumpeter. Biography Williams was born in Galveston, Texas, and played tenor saxophone early in his life before picking up trumpet as a teenager. He played in local Texas bands and attended Wiley College, where he majored in music. After serving in the Air Force from 1952 to 1956, he toured Europe with Lionel Hampton, and upon his return took a master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music.
Go to Profile#15606
Scott Ross
1951 - 1989 (38 years)
Scott Ross was a United States-born harpsichordist who lived in France and Canada for many years. His recordings include the first complete recording by a single performer of the 555 harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti.
Go to Profile#15607
Frank Merrick
1886 - 1981 (95 years)
Frank Merrick CBE was an English pianist and composer in the early 20th century. Life Merrick was born in Clifton, now part of Bristol, the son of musical parents. Due to his asthma he was mostly educated at home by his parents and by a governess. At the age of eleven he was taken to play for the great Polish pianist Paderewski, who suggested he go to Vienna to study with Theodor Leschetizky. While in Vienna he met Johann Strauss II and showed him a waltz he'd composed. After 70 or more lessons with Leschetizky he returned to London and made his debut, first in 1902 with the Halle Orchestra ...
Go to Profile#15608
Mihail Jora
1891 - 1971 (80 years)
Mihail Jora was a Romanian composer, pianist, and conductor. Jora studied in Leipzig with Robert Teichmüller. From 1929 to 1962 he was a professor at the Bucharest Conservatoire. He worked from 1928 to 1933 as a director/conductor of the Bucharest Broadcasting Orchestra. In 1944 he became vice-president of the Society of Romanian Composers: however, he soon came into criticism of the new communist government being accused of formalism . In 1953, he was rehabilitated and allowed to rejoin the Composers' Union.
Go to Profile#15609
Ray Taylor
1888 - 1952 (64 years)
Raymond Edgar Taylor was an American film director. He directed 159 films between 1926 and 1949. His debut was the 1926 film serial Fighting with Buffalo Bill. Ray Taylor was one of the few Hollywood directors who specialized in a single type of film: he was an action specialist. Many action directors would be called upon at one time or another to helm a mainstream drama, romance, or mystery, but Ray Taylor established himself early in westerns and action fare, and he worked in this capacity throughout his career. Even a brief tenure directing the campus-capers "Collegians" shorts for Univer...
Go to Profile#15610
Eduard von Winterstein
1871 - 1961 (90 years)
Eduard Clemens Franz Anna Freiherr von Wangenheim , known as Eduard von Winterstein, was an Austrian-German film actor who appeared in over one hundred fifty German films during the silent and sound eras. He was also a noted theater actor.
Go to Profile#15611
Volkmar Andreae
1879 - 1962 (83 years)
Volkmar Andreae was a Swiss conductor and composer. Life and career Andreae was born in Bern. He received piano instruction as a child and his first lessons in composition with Karl Munzinger. From 1897 to 1900, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory and was a student of Fritz Brun, Franz Wüllner, Isidor Seiss and Friedrich Wilhelm Franke. In 1900 he was a soloist tutor at the Munich Hofoper. In 1902 he took over the leadership of the Mixed Choir of Zurich , where he remained until 1949, also leading the from 1902 to 1914 and the from 1904 to 1914.
Go to Profile#15612
Peter DeRose
1900 - 1953 (53 years)
Peter DeRose was an American composer of jazz and pop music during the era of Tin Pan Alley. Biography A native of New York City, a son of Anthony and Armelina Agresti De Rose, he showed a gift for all things musical at an early age. He learned to play the piano from an older sister. F.B. Haviland published his first song, "Tiger Rose Waltzes", when he was 18 years old. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917, he found a job at a music store as a stock room clerk. His composition "When You're Gone, I Won't Forget" led to a job at the New York office of Italian music publisher G.
Go to Profile#15613
Simon Kovar
1890 - 1970 (80 years)
Simon Kovar was a 20th-century bassoonist and one of the most renowned teachers of the instrument. Simon Kovar was born Simon Kovarski in Vilnius, Russian Empire, in 1890. He took up the bassoon at age 20 after originally studying the violin. Kovar came to the United States in June 1922, settling in New York City, where he took the position of second bassoonist with the New York Philharmonic and was then first bassoonist for many years. He was highly regarded as a teacher and was head of the bassoon faculty at the Juilliard School of Music for 28 years. Kovar also taught at Teachers College ...
Go to Profile#15614
Julius Eichberg
1824 - 1893 (69 years)
Julius Eichberg was a German-born composer, musical director and educator who worked mostly in Boston, Massachusetts. Biography Julius Eichberg was born in Düsseldorf, Germany to a Jewish family. His first musical instruction came from his father whose pupil was an acceptable violin player by his seventh year. He also received instruction outside the family. He attended the Musical Academy of Würzburg as a child. Upon the recommendation of Felix Mendelssohn, he entered the Brussels Conservatoire at the age of nineteen, where he took first prizes for violin playing and composition. He was a pu...
Go to Profile#15615
George W. Johnson
1846 - 1914 (68 years)
George Washington Johnson was an American singer and pioneer sound recording artist. Johnson was the first African American recording star of the phonograph. His most popular songs were "The Whistling Coon" and "The Laughing Song".
Go to Profile#15616
Edward G. Cox
1876 - 1963 (87 years)
Edward Godfrey Cox was an American linguist and yachtsman. He was born in Ottawa, Ohio and became a professor at Cornell University and then University of Washington. He was the editor of the journal Modern Language Quarterly from 1943 to 1963, when he died.
Go to Profile#15617
Fanny Brice
1891 - 1951 (60 years)
Fania Borach , known professionally as Fanny Brice or Fannie Brice, was an American comedian, illustrated song model, singer, and actress who made many stage, radio, and film appearances. She is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series The Baby Snooks Show.
Go to Profile#15618
Julius Klengel
1859 - 1933 (74 years)
Julius Klengel was a German cellist who is most famous for his études and solo pieces written for the instrument. He was the brother of Paul Klengel. A member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig at fifteen, he toured extensively throughout Europe as cellist and soloist of the Gewandhaus Quartet. His pupils include Guilhermina Suggia, Emanuel Feuermann, Gregor Piatigorsky and Alexandre Barjansky.
Go to Profile#15619
Jeannette Mirsky
1903 - 1987 (84 years)
Jeannette Mirsky Ginsburg was an American writer who was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947 for her biographical writings on the history of exploration. Early life and education Jeannette R. Mirsky was born in Bradley Beach, New Jersey and raised in New York City, the daughter of Michael David Mirsky and Frieda Ettleson Mirsky. Her father was in the garment business. Her brother was Alfred Mirsky , a cell biologist involved in the discovery of DNA. She was a student at the Ethical Culture School, class of 1921. She attended Barnard College, graduating in 1924. She did graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University with Franz Boas and Margaret Mead.
Go to Profile#15620
Pierre Collet
1914 - 1977 (63 years)
Pierre Collet was a French film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1943 and 1977. Selected filmography Goodbye Leonard - Le marchand d'habits Night Shift - Un réparateur de ligne Coup de tête - Florence est folle Night Warning La Maison sous la mer - Un mineur Histoires extraordinaires - Cotin / FrançoisThe Winner's Circle - Royal Affairs in Versailles - Petit rôle If Paris Were Told to Us - Petit rôle Méfiez-vous fillettes - Thérèse Étienne - L'avocatÉchec au porteur - MorignyLe désordre et la nuit - Un inspecteur Le vent se lève - CrewmanLe f...
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Henri Gagnon
1887 - 1961 (74 years)
Henri Gagnon was a Canadian composer, organist, and music educator. He spent 51 years playing the organ at the Notre-Dame Basilica-Cathedral of Quebec City where, according to music historian François Brassard, he earned "a prestige similar to that of the famous organists of Europe". He was a much admired teacher and taught at several institutions, notably succeeding Wilfrid Pelletier as the second director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec. As a composer, he produced mainly works for solo organ and piano; although he did write a few choral works and vocal pieces as well. One...
Go to Profile#15622
Alessandro Rolla
1757 - 1841 (84 years)
Alessandro Rolla was an Italian viola and violin virtuoso, composer, conductor and teacher. His son, Antonio Rolla, was also a violin virtuoso and composer. His fame now rests mainly as "teacher of the great Paganini", yet his role was very important in the development of violin and viola technique. Some of the technical innovations that Paganini later used largely, such as left-hand pizzicato, chromatic ascending and descending scales, the use of very high positions on violin and viola, octave passages, were first introduced by Rolla.
Go to Profile#15623
Erich Welter
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
Erich Welter was a German economist and the founding editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from November 1949. Welter was a professor of economics at the University of Mainz between 1946 and 1973.
Go to Profile#15624
Arabella Goddard
1836 - 1922 (86 years)
Arabella Goddard was an English pianist. She was born and died in France. Her parents, Thomas Goddard, an heir to a Salisbury cutlery firm, and Arabella née Ingles, were part of an English community of expatriates living in Saint-Servan near Saint-Malo, Brittany. She remained very proud of her French background all her life, and spiced her conversation with French phrases .
Go to Profile#15625
Scott Bradley
1891 - 1977 (86 years)
Walter Scott Bradley was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and conductor. Bradley is best remembered for scoring MGM's theatrical cartoons, including those starring Tom and Jerry, Barney Bear, Screwy Squirrel, Droopy, George and Junior and many one-off cartoons.
Go to Profile#15626
Ferdinand Büchner
1823 - 1906 (83 years)
Ferdinand Büchner was a German flautist and composer. Ferdinand Büchner began studying the flute at an early age with his father, who played a leading role in the musical life of Bad Pyrmont. He was later taught by the flutist Christian Heinemeyer. He traveled to London, where he had his first public engagement at the age of 13. In 1847 he received an engagement in Berlin, where he remained for three years. In 1850 he traveled to Russia, and was intensely involved in the musical life of St. Petersburg. In 1856 he was appointed principal flute of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He retained the position until shortly before his death.
Go to Profile#15627
Toivo Haapanen
1889 - 1950 (61 years)
Toivo Elias Haapanen was a Finnish conductor and music scholar. Early life and education Haapanen was born in 1889 in Karvia, Finland. His sister was the writer Tyyni Tuulio. His son is the violinist Tuomas Haapanen.
Go to Profile#15628
Sophie Tucker
1886 - 1966 (80 years)
Sophie Tucker was an American singer, comedian, actress, and radio personality. Known for her powerful delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. She was known by the nickname "the Last of the Red-Hot Mamas".
Go to Profile#15629
Louis Plaidy
1810 - 1874 (64 years)
Louis Plaidy was a celebrated German piano pedagogue and compiler of books of technical music studies. Life Born in Hubertusburg, Saxony, Plaidy initially focused on the violin, and toured as a concert violinist, but he later studied the piano, particularly the technical aspects of playing. Plaidy was renowned for his ability to impart technical skills to his students.
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Carl Borgstrøm
1909 - 1986 (77 years)
Carl Hjalmar Borgstrøm was a Norwegian professor of Indo-European linguistics who made significant contributions to the scientific study of Scottish Gaelic and Irish. His key publications on Scottish Gaelic include: The dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 8 A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. The dialects of the Outer Hebrides Oslo University Press A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. The dialects of Skye and Ross-shire Oslo University Press
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Peter Vogel
1937 - 1978 (41 years)
Peter Vogel was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1954 and 1978. He was born in Munich, Germany and died in Vienna, Austria, after committing suicide. His father was the actor Rudolf Vogel. He was married to the Austrian actress Gertraud Jesserer and is the father of actor-journalist Nikolas Vogel. was interred next to his father at Bogenhausener Friedhof, Germany.
Go to Profile#15632
Lucijan Marija Škerjanc
1900 - 1973 (73 years)
Lucijan Marija Škerjanc was a Slovene composer, music pedagogue, conductor, musician, and writer who was accomplished on and wrote for a number of musical instruments such as the piano, violin and clarinet. His style reflected late romanticism with qualities of expressionism and impressionism in his pieces, often with a hyperbolic artistic temperament, juxtaposing the dark against melodic phrases in his music.
Go to Profile#15633
Makar Yekmalyan
1856 - 1905 (49 years)
Makar Grigori Yekmalyan was an Armenian composer. Biography Yekmalyan studied at the Echmiadzin seminary and later in St Petersburg with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He then taught music in Tbilisi , where he died in 1905.
Go to Profile#15634
Sam Woodyard
1925 - 1988 (63 years)
Sam Woodyard was an American jazz drummer. He was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States. Woodyard was largely an autodidact on drums and played locally in the Newark, New Jersey, area in the 1940s. He performed with Paul Gayten in an R&B group, then played in the early 1950s with Joe Holiday, Roy Eldridge, and Milt Buckner. In 1955, he joined Duke Ellington's orchestra and remained until 1966.
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Leandro Campanari
1859 - 1939 (80 years)
Leandro Campanari was an Italian violinist, conductor, composer and music teacher, brother of cellist and baritone Giuseppe Campanari. Career Leandro Campanari was born in Rovigo, Italy on 20 October 1859. He began studying at a very early age and was sent by the city of Venice to the Musical Institute of Padua when nine years old. At 12 he toured Italy as a violinist prodigy, and to London where he played under Julius Benedict. Later he was associated with Franco Faccio and Antonio Bazzini. At 15 he entered the Conservatory of Music in Milan and studied the violin, harmony, counterpoint and conducting with the most eminent teachers of that institution.
Go to Profile#15636
Robert Kahn
1865 - 1951 (86 years)
Robert Kahn was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher. Life Kahn was born in Mannheim, the second son of Bernhard Kahn and Emma Eberstadt. One of his seven siblings was the wealthy financier Otto Kahn whose son Roger Wolfe Kahn was a successful jazz musician, composer and aviator. His parents belonged to a distinguished German-Jewish family of bankers and merchants. In 1882, Kahn entered the Königlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied for the next three years. Between 1885 and 1886, he continued his musical education under Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a visit to Vi...
Go to Profile#15637
Franz Strauss
1822 - 1905 (83 years)
Franz Joseph Strauss was a German musician. He was a composer, a virtuoso horn player and accomplished performer on the guitar, clarinet and viola. He was principal horn player of the Bavarian Court Opera for more than 40 years, a teacher at the Royal School of Music, Munich, and a conductor.
Go to Profile#15638
Ray Martin
1918 - 1988 (70 years)
Ray Martin was an Austrian-British orchestra leader. He was noted for his light music compositions. Allmusic journalist Bradley Torreano stated, "Ray Martin created a legacy for himself in British popular music through his work with his orchestra during the 1950s. His regular appearances on radio and television kept him in the public spotlight, while his position at EMI Records made him an influential producer at the label. His use of pseudonyms has blurred the path of his career through the years, making his many contributions even harder to keep track of. But his original compositions are ...
Go to Profile#15639
Wilbur Ware
1923 - 1979 (56 years)
Wilbur Bernard Ware was an American jazz double bassist. He was a regular bassist for the Riverside record label in the 1950s, and recorded regularly in that decade with Johnny Griffin, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, and Thelonious Monk. He also appeared on records released by J.R. Monterose, Toots Thielemans, Sonny Clark, Tina Brooks, Zoot Sims, and Grant Green, among others.
Go to Profile#15640
Martin Sommerfeld
1894 - 1939 (45 years)
Martin Sommerfeld was a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany to the U.S. who was a professor at the University of Frankfurt and subsequently at Columbia University, the City College of New York, Smith College, and Middlebury College, where he taught German language and literature. He authored and edited a number of volumes on German literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries, and he wrote numerous contributions to the four-volume Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte .
Go to Profile#15641
John Kirwan
1869 - 1949 (80 years)
Sir John Waters Kirwan, KCMG was the President of the Western Australian Legislative Council and first Federal member for Kalgoorlie in the Australian House of Representatives. Biography Early life He was born in Liverpool, England, of Irish parents.
Go to Profile#15642
Dorothy Dandridge
1922 - 1965 (43 years)
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and singer. She was the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in Carmen Jones . Dandridge also performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles.
Go to Profile#15643
Vadim Borisovsky
1900 - 1972 (72 years)
Vadim Vasilyevich Borisovsky was a Soviet and Russian violist. Biography Born in Moscow, Borisovsky entered Moscow Conservatory in 1917 studying the violin with Mikhail Press. A year later, on the advice of violist Vladimir Bakaleinikov, Borisovsky turned his attentions to the viola. He studied with Bakaleinikov and graduated in 1922. Borisovsky became Professor of Viola at the conservatory in 1925
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Jessie Matthews
1907 - 1981 (74 years)
Jessie Margaret Matthews was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, however, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected.
Go to Profile#15645
Michael Mann
1919 - 1977 (58 years)
Michael Thomas Mann was a German-born musician and professor of German literature. Life Born in Munich, Michael Mann was the youngest child of writer Thomas Mann and Katia Mann. He was of Jewish descent from his mother's side. Due to his being the grandson of Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-Indigenous Brazilian partial descent.
Go to Profile#15646
Hall Overton
1920 - 1972 (52 years)
Hall Franklin Overton was an American composer, jazz pianist and music teacher. Life He was born in Bangor, Michigan, the first of the three sons of Stanford and Ruth Overton. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After taking piano lessons as a youngster, Overton realized he'd have to travel beyond his small Midwestern town to find the kind of music instruction he wanted. His high school music teacher recognized Overton's gift and recommended he attend The Chicago Musical College after graduation. Overton studied theory and composition there from 1940 to 1942.
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Vera Griner
1890 - 1992 (102 years)
Vera Griner , was a Russian Empire-born Soviet rhythmitician, born 5 April 1890 in Saint Petersburg, died 24 June 1992 in Moscow. Her father, Alexander Alvang, was a well-known barrister. Since 1908 the Alvang family had been living in Munich. It was here that Alvang became acquainted with Rhythmics. In 1911 she came to Dresden, where she took lessons from Dalcroze, and attended the newly founded Hellerau Institute. In 1912 Alvang, together with several pupils of Dalcroze came to St. Petersburg to train to be a teacher with courses set by Prince Serge Wolkonsky. After a year she was a teacher and a student of Hellerau, and in May 1913 she graduated from the Institute and returned to St.
Go to Profile#15648
Wilhelm Kosch
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Wilhelm Franz Josef Kosch was an Austrian historian of literature and theatre and lexicographer. The lexicon that he conceived and later revised several times, the is a references in the field of German literature.
Go to Profile#15649
Erich Katz
1900 - 1973 (73 years)
Erich Katz was a German-born musicologist, composer, music critic, musician and professor. He fled the Nazis in 1939, arriving first in England, emigrating to the United States in 1943, where he became a citizen. He was a driving force behind the early music and recorder movements in the United States. Bernard Krainis, a co-founder of New York Pro Musica studied with Katz.
Go to Profile#15650
Hot Lips Page
1908 - 1954 (46 years)
Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist. Page was a member of Walter Page's Blue Devils, Artie Shaw's Orchestra and Count Basie's Orchestra, and he worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ida Cox. He was one of the five musicians booked for the opening night at Birdland with Charlie Parker in 1949.
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