Lisa Bonet was born in San Francisco to an African-American father and a Jewish-American mother.  She began acting at age 11, and became most famous for her role as Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show beginning in 1984.  She also starred in the somewhat controversial Angel Heart with Mickey Rourke in 1987.  She was married to musician Lenny Kravitz from 1988 to 1993, and they had a daughter.

So, what's up with the pipe?  Some people are so eager to point to certain celebrities as pipe smokers that they will jump at the chance to call anyone a pipe smoker who pops a stem in his/her mouth.

I must remain skeptical in this instance as to the question of her pipe smoking status, for these reasons:

1.  There is no smoke rising from the bowl of the pipe.
2.  The angle of the photo makes it impossible to see if the pipe is loaded or not.
3.  If this meerschaum pipe has ever been smoked at all, it could not have been smoked very much, because it shows absolutely no coloration.

Still, this is probably the only legitimate reason I'll ever have to post a photo of Lisa Bonet on my blog, so carpe diem.

Archie Shepp was born in Florida and raised in Philadelphia, where he studied piano, clarinet, and alto sax while he was growing up.  He went to Goddard College in New York to study drama, but was unsuccessful as an actor so he turned to music professionally, focusing on the tenor sax, piano, and vocals.

His music career began when pianist Cecil Taylor invited him to join his group in 1960.  He later went on to collaborate with saxophonist John Coltrane and other pioneering jazz musicians.

Shepp, along with Taylor, was one of the first musicians to seriously explore "free jazz."  He is also completely fluent in traditional jazz, spirituals, and the blues.


Archie Shepp currently lives in Massachusetts, where he is a professor of music history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Brett was the British actor probably most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.  He trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.  He made his first (although uncredited) appearance on film in 1954, and on stage in 1956.  He played many classical and Shakespearean roles on stage, and a wide variety of roles on film.

He auditioned for the role of James Bond twice, but lost both times to George Lazenby and Roger Moore.

His singing in My Fair Lady was overdubbed, although he was actually a very good singer.

He was married to actress Anna Massey during 1958-62 (after which they divorced), and they had one son in 1959, David Huggins.  He is now a cartoonist and novelist.

Brett remarried in 1976 to Joan Wilson, an American producer for PBS.  She died of cancer in 1985, and he was devastated by the loss.  His health began to decline and he never recovered from it.  He never remarried again.

Brett was a very heavy cigarette smoker, but he also took up the pipe after being cast as Sherlock Holmes.  He based his portrayal of Holmes on the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, rather than on previous portrayals by other actors (which is what just about every other actor seems to have done).  An obvious difference is the pipes he used as Holmes.  They are both historically accurate and in line with the descriptions given in the stories--not a single calabash to be seen.

Jeremy Brett suffered from bipolar disorder, which worsened after Joan Wilson's death.  He died of heart failure in 1995, probably brought on not only by his heavy cigarette smoking, but also by the medication he had to take to control his bipolar disorder and by a case of rheumatic fever he had when he was 16.

Norman Rockwell is another very famous pipe smoker who I won't be able to say anything new about.  So here's some stuff you probably already know.

He became art editor of Boy's Life magazine when he was only 19.  He painted several covers for the magazine and went on to illustrate numerous Boy Scout calendars throughout his life.

During World War I he tried to enlist, but was turned down for being underweight (6 feet tall, 140 pounds).  He went home and gorged himself, then went back the next day and made the cut.  However, he was assigned as a military artist and did not see combat during his tour.

He successfully submitted his first illustration to Saturday Evening Post in 1916.  He is perhaps most famous for his numerous cover illustrations for this magazine.  Other magazines for which he painted covers are Literary Digest, The Country Gentleman, Leslie's Weekly, Judge, Peoples Popular Monthly and Life.

His paintings are famous both for realism and for their portrayal of American life.  Many of his works are set in rural and small town settings.  Later in life, he turned his attention to the civil rights struggle.

The above graphic is Rockwell's "Triple Self Portrait."  Pipe smoking was featured in many of his works such as:



And my favorite:

Segovia was born in Linares, Spain, and was introduced to the guitar as a child.  He made it his purpose in life to turn the guitar into a classical instrument, and did.

Segovia claimed to have "rescued the guitar from the hands of flamenco gypsies."  He found flamenco technique appalling, and began building up a repertoire of classical performances using the guitar.  His first professional concert was at the age of 16 in Madrid, where he performed works by J.S. Bach.

Although many other musicians at the time did not believe the guitar could seriously be used to perform classical music, Segovia's astounding talent and technique convinced them otherwise.

Eventually he teamed up with luthier Herbert Hauser Sr. to create the new classical guitar.

In 1981 he was elevated to the Spanish nobility, with the title Marquis de Salobreña.  He was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986.

He remains an influence on guitarists of many genres.

Edward Fox is from a family of actors and theatre people.  His big breakthrough film was Day of the Jackal in 1973.  Other movies he has starred in are A Bridge Too Far, Force 10 From Navarone, and Ghandi.

He was made an Officer of the British Empire in 2003.

From Comiclopedia:

Jacques Faizant was one of France's most popular press illustrators. After studying at the hotel school in Nice, he worked in several hotels until 1938. He settled in Marseille and went to work as an illustrator. During the War, he drew for Le Dimanche Illustré and La Revue de l'Écran, while also composings songs and cooperating with Lortac on animation projects. Upon the Liberation, he headed for Paris and started out working for Carrefour and L'Ecran Français. He was eventually assigned by Jean Nohain of Bonjour Dimanche and its supplement Le Petit Canard. For this supplement, Faizant made comics like 'Le Colonel Broum et Patapoum', 'Pyk et Pato au Centre de la Terre', 'Monsieur Mite' and 'L'Invraisemblable M. Pluche'.

He also made several strips for the daily press, of which 'Adam et Eve' was the longest running (approx. 700 or 800 gags). This family comic debuted in France Dimanche in 1949, and was renamed 'Adam et Eve (et Caïn)' when the characters got their first child. In addition, Faizant made independent strips, as well as 'Le Tour en Dessins' in La Dépêche (1948), 'Les Aventures de M. Faribole' and 'Docteur Doublevé' in Le Parisien Libéré, 'Bouts (de crayons) Rimés' in Ici-Paris and 'M. Patraque' in La Vie Catholique. He also made the advertising strip 'Le Chimiste BP', that was published between 1954 and 1957 in Le Midi Libre, L'Union, La Dépêche and Le Main Libre.

From 1960, Faizant worked as a political cartoonist for Le Figaro, while also continuing to work as a humorous illustrator in Le Chasseur Français, La Vie du Rail, Détective, Rires Magazine and jardin des Modes until the 1990s.

Denslow was a humor and political cartoonist for a magazine called Philistine.  He was born in Philadelphia but by 1890 was living in Chicago, where he met L. Frank Baum.  Baum was impressed enough by Denslow's work that Denslow eventually provided illustrations for several of Baum's books, among them The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

He and Baum had a falling out over royalties from the 1902 stage version of The Wizard of Oz, for which Denslow designed the sets and costumes.  Nevertheless, Denslow became quite wealthy from royalties from the books and the play.  He purchased himself a small island off the coast of Bermuda where he lived out the rest of his days, dying in obscurity due to pneumonia and probably the effects of alcoholism.

He had a characteristic signature which included a stylized representation of a seahorse, as show in the autographed photo above.

Denslow was said to have preferred the corncob pipe because it was so light that it rarely required a hand to hold it, which kept both hands free for his work.