Who am I?

[red dog 1]

Think about a famous person, dead or alive, and mention some little-known facts about him or her, then see if anyone can guess "who you are."


(For example)
Who Am I?
-I was born in Ohio.
- I was bullied as a kid because I was very short.
- I ran away from home many times.
- By the age of 18, I had worked at the following jobs;
- a tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston
- itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans
- short-order cook
- cab driver
- lithographer
- book salesman
- floorwalker in a department store
- door-to-door brush salesman

(Answered)

[yorkster]

1. Wild guess - Studs Terkel

[red dog 1]

3. No, now why don't you "become someone"?

(I loved listening to Studs Terkel's radio show)

[yorkster]

5. Oh jeez red dog 1, I forgot about that part.

And I was awake until 3am, not yet fully compos mentis. and dealing with eye irritation. Can I beg off? Your idea is a good one.
I miss Studs, too. A real mensch.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. Clark Gable?

[red dog 1]

4. Nope,

now, you "become someone" (if you want to)

[rsdsharp]

6. John Steinbeck?

[red dog 1]

7. No, good guess though.

He was a writer.

[werdna]

8. You forgot -

- joined an actual gang to get background for a story. Unless you felt that might give it away. Initials H. E.

[red dog 1]

11. Ding!

I hadn't heard about him joining an actual gang....Where might I get more info on that?
[Where did you hear about that?]

[LogDog75]

9. I'll take a WAG

Col. Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.

[red dog 1]

12. It was a different Harlan, Harlan Ellison.

Last edited Fri Jun 5, 2026, 06:51 PM - Edit history (1)

[Doc_Technical]

10. Harlan Ellison

He was called an Enfant terrible by many famous people

[red dog 1]

13. That's the guy!

[red dog 1]

14. Who am I?

Last edited Sun Jun 14, 2026, 01:59 PM - Edit history (2)

- I was born in Chicago, but grew up in New Jersey.
- When I was 23, I went to Paris with my sister and did performance art.
- I returned to Manhattan, where I worked in a book store, and while there, I met a young man who turned out to be a well-known photographer.
- We lived together in an historic old hotel in Manhattan.
- I spent the early 1970s painting, writing , and doing performance art.
- In 1971, I performed in a one-act play which I co-wrote with Sam Shepard
- I wrote many poems, including several poems about Sam Shepard.
- On February 10, 1971, accompanied by an electric guitarist, I gave my first public poetry performance.
- I wrote lyrics for some Blue Oyster Cult songs and became romantically involved with Allan Lanier, Blue Oyster cult's keyboardist.
- On March 12, 2007, I was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- In 2010, a book I wrote was published. It was a memoir about my time living in Manhattan in the 1970s, and it won the National Book Award for Nonfiction

[Harker]

17. That's Patti Smith!

[red dog 1]

15. "I was born in Beech Grove, Indiana. I had a rough childhood. My mother was an alcoholic & left me with my grandparents

when I was three.
As the Great Depression worsened, we moved in with my Uncle Claude & his family at their farm in Slater, Missouri.
When I was eight, my mother brought me from the farm to live with her and her husband in Indianapolis.
I didn't adjust well to school or my new life, and my stepfather beat me to such an extent that I left home to live on the streets at age nine.
I later returned to my Uncle Claude's farm until I was 12, when my mother asked my uncle for me to be returned to her and her 2nd husband in Los Angeles.
My new stepfather was a prime "son-of-a-bitch" who was not averse to beating my mother and me
I ran away and joined a circus for a short time, then returned to Los Angeles and lived with my mother & stepfather again & resumed my life as a gang member & petty criminal.
I was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to my stepfather who beat me severely and threw me down a flight of stairs.
I looked up at him and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear I'll kill you."
I was then sent to a school for troubled adolescents in Chino Hills, CA.
In 1947, I enlisted in the US Marines, where I saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea.
In 1952, under the GI Bill, I began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio.
I had minor roles in stage productions and later acted in some B movies.
My breakout role came on television, where I appeared in Dale Robertson's NBC Western series "Tales of Wells Fargo" as Bill Longley.
My next role was as lead actor in another popular TV western.
After starring in many movies, including "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape," I turned down roles in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Oceans 11," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Driver," "Apocalypse Now," "Dirty Harry," "A Bridge Too Far," "The French Connection," and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, I drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed.
Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!"

Who am I?

[Tikki]

16. Just a guess...

Lee Marvin.

Tikki

[red dog 1]

19. Nope, good guess though.

[Harker]

18. You, my friend, are Steve McQueen.

[red dog 1]

20. Yep