When he placed his native city of Newark at the center of Goodbye, Columbus in 1959, Roth became indelibly associated with the state of New Jersey and what it means to grow up Jewish here....
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In a black floor-length gown shimmering with diamonds, her voice rich and mellow, Queen Latifah shared the stage with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in late October to celebrate NJPAC’s first decade. “Ten years for NJPAC is a beautiful thing,” she said, “and I’m glad to be here.”...
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She came from nowhere to nearly capture Bill Bradley’s U.S. Senate seat in 1990, a development that helped persuade the former Princeton basketball star not to seek a fourth term in 1996. Whitman then took on Jim Florio in 1993, becoming the first woman governor in state history and defeating an incumbent—no small achievement—in the process....
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If he weren’t on this list, the legendary mayor of Jersey City and boss of Hudson County surely would have found a way, even from the great beyond, to exact retribution from the wards. Hague was the most powerful New Jersey politician during the New Deal, a man Franklin Roosevelt took care to cultivate....
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As two-term governor (1982–1990) and then as chairman of the federal 9/11 Commission, Kean remains one of the state’s most popular political figures. As a candidate for reelection in 1985, Kean forged a diverse coalition that Republicans have been looking to replicate, without success, ever since....
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He’s a state forest now instead of a sports arena, but one thing hasn’t changed: his high standing in the polls. During his years in Trenton (he was elected in 1973 and reelected in 1977), the sports complex in the Meadowlands became reality, residents were hit with an income tax, and gambling was legalized in Atlantic City....
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For almost three decades he’s been a bankable star, the kind who can, as the saying goes, open a movie. Now the question is whether he can also produce one....
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Only those closest to Meredith Peterson knew that when she co-chaired a major breast cancer fundraiser in October, 2005, she herself was at the end-stage of the disease. The black-tie gala raised $300,000 for the Breast Health Center at the University Medical Center at Princeton. In October 2006, Peterson, 36, died after a four-year battle with the disease, leaving behind her husband and two children under age seven....
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Her voice has been called wondrous, sensual, and angelic, but never syrupy—one of her nicknames, you may recall, was “Sassy.” Newark’s Sarah Vaughan got her break at eighteen, then for nearly 50 years got better and better as she mastered bebop, jazz, and pop. Vaughan’s plush pipes and perfect control earned her a spot in the vocal pantheon as well as her other nickname, “The Divine One.”...
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Many of the talk-show tropes we think of as hip and new—turning the camera on the stagehands, savaging the empty suits in TV’s executive suites, quick-cutting to sight gags—originated with this Trenton native who started on radio there and was a columnist for the Trentonian....
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The 1954 Manasquan High School “class clown” got his break in horror films, then catapulted to fame in 1969’s Easy Rider as an insouciant rogue unlike any seen before. Who else has that lizardly mien, that puckish bravado, that trip-hammer temper, that sexy sinister smirk, that...well, you get the idea. You do know Jack, the one and only....
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The Newark lad’s spasmodic dimwit shtick and signature shriek (“Laaaady!” was the “Dyn-o-mite!” of its day) are a love/hate thing. But his gutsy turn in Scorsese’s kinky The King of Comedy is a keeper, and so is his legacy as a Muscular Dystrophy fundraiser– $2 billion since 1952....
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She makes it look easy: Research the character. Perfect the accent (Australian, Polish, Italian, Danish, Iowan, to name a few). Internalize the gestures....
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(1906–1997) Changes brought about by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1950s and ’60s will always be associated with the chief justice, Earl Warren....
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(1916-) If there’s a topic he hasn’t covered in his dozens of books on New Jersey, it may not be worth knowing....
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An author of books on developing leadership among Hispanic women and on the experience of Puerto Ricans in New Jersey, Bonilla-Santiago has designed cultural diversity curricula for colleges, corporations, and even the IRS....
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Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian-born inventor, pioneered the first mechanical TV system—using his kinescope—in 1910 and 1929 as director of RCA’s Electronic Research Laboratory in Camden....
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At 59, “Southside” Johnny Lyon relaxes by selling vintage vinyl at record fairs, but when he cuts loose at night with his Asbury Jukes, he leaves no doubt the Shore sound is alive and well. ...
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