Of Lennon and McCartney, great volleys, and Worcester women in the Hall of Fame, Vol. VIII

By David "Chet" Williamson Sneade

Record company executive Al Coury was born in Worcester in 1934. Time magazine dubbed him as the “Man who sells the sizzle.” Sell he did. He was responsible for promoting the solo efforts of Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run, and John Lennon’s Walls and Bridges. Coury also helped launch the careers of such household rock names as Aerosmith, The Beach Boys, Cher, and Linda Ronstadt, to name only a few. His given name was Albert Eli Coury, a Lebanese-American kid whose love of music began at an early age. He played the trumpet as a teenager. After high school, he worked at movie theaters, and as Rolling Stone magazine said, “[He] became a manager of one in Hartford, Connecticut, at age 21. He then took a shot at a sales position at Capitol Records and wound up getting the job. Coury worked in sales for two years, then moved into record promotion, where he made his mark. He stayed at Capitol 17 years, becoming senior vice-president in charge of A&R.”

Lennon and Coury

After leaving Capitol, along with Robert Stigwood, Coury co-founded RSO Records. The label was responsible for advancing the tunes included in the soundtracks to Saturday Night Fever and Grease, among others. They also scored with Eric Clapton’s Slowhand.

In the 1980s, Coury set out on his own to found Network records. In 1984, the label made its biggest splash with the soundtrack to Flashdance, which produced the hit single, “What a Feeling.” The song won a Grammy and the Oscar for “Song of the Year.”

Billboard Magazine noted that in 1985, “Network Records merged with Geffen Records and Coury became Geffen's general manager. At Geffen, Coury’s successes included albums by Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel and Don Henley. … Coury retired from the record business in 1994. He served on the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame and was a devout follower of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.”

Billboard described Coury as a “hard-working, plain-spoken leader who lived a relatively simple lifestyle, Coury was involved in every aspect of the business from crafting marketing strategies to helping artists select singles.” Frederic Dannen in his book Hit Men, said, “There are those that believed Al Coury was the greatest promotion man of all time.”

Coury died in Thousand Oaks, California in 2013.

Actress Nora Marlowe was born in Worcester in 1915. A prolific character actress who appeared on countless episodes of some of America's all-time favorite television shows, including "The Donna Reed Show," "Hawaiian Eye," "Petticoat Junction," "The Bob Newhart Show," "Emergency," "Kojak" and the "Twilight Zone," Marlowe is best known for her role as Flossie Brimmer on "The Waltons." Her film credits are also impressive. She's appeared in North by Northwest, An Affair to Remember, and Soylent Green, to name a few. In 1957 alone, Marlowe appeared in five films. They are I'll Cry Tomorrow, The Shadow on the Window, This Could Be the Night, Designing Woman, and An Affair to Remember.

She was a kind of lunch pail actress who went to work every day and took care of business. Her early television credits find her in "State Trooper" and "Meeting Julias" from 1956 and "The Clever Man" in 1958. She appeared multiple times on "Gunsmoke," "Law of the Plainsman," and "My Living Doll," with Robert Cummings and Julie Numar.

Marlowe was married to Scottish actor James McCallion in 1943. He was a regular on NBC's National Velvet. He played Mi Taylor an ex-racehorse jockey. Marlowe guest starred on the show. The couple also appeared together on the set of "Wagon Train" and "The Big Valley." They were married for 34 years and one of their sons is the television producer Denis McCallion.  

Marlowe died in Los Angeles in 1977. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea.

Tennis player Ferdi Taygan was born in Worcester in 1956. A child of Turkish and Belarus descent, his father immigrated to the USA to study civil engineering. According to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), Taygan was an All-American at UCLA from 1974-1977 where "he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and was the NCAA doubles champion in 1976. He was the 1974 National junior champion and a member of the Junior Davis Cup team in 1972-75."

Taygan, Greg Gallagher and Peter Lyons

His professional career began in 1977 and the 5’ 8” pro played all of the great tournaments of the tennis circuit from the US Open to the French Open, from Wimbledon to the Australian Open. His singles record pales in comparison to his doubles. His solo record was completed at 74 wins against 120 losses. His highest rank happened in 1980. He was number 59.

ATP called Taygan a "nonpareil doubles specialist, his career titles are both lengthy and impressive. Ferdi and Sherwood Stewart formed the top doubles team on the Grand Prix points ladder in 1982." Other partners included Fritz Buehning, Brian Teacher, Peter Fleming, John Austin, Tim Wilkison, and John McEnroe, among others. As a doubles player, Taygan won 19 titles in his career and at one time was ranked No. 8 in the world. His record is 297 wins and 180 losses.

Taygan was inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame in 2006. He has been with Simons & Company since 2002 as the Director of Institutional Sales in their Boston office.

Renaissance woman Joyce Reopel was born in Worcester in 1933. John Guen in his 1969 New Yorker article, "Trickery Without Gimmickry" said that Reopel was an "artisan as well as an artist. She holds to the belief that working in the old-master techniques of silverpoint or goldpoint can today produce its own logic. She is quite right. Her drawings combine a present-day tension with a technical awareness of the past. The results are small feats of clarity and detail."

Reopel was a student of the masterful illustrator, printmaker and graphic artist Leonard Baskin, who was a one-time resident of Castle Street. She studied with him at the Worcester Art Museum in the early 1950s. Baskin's influence can be seen in one of Reopel's illustrations for a 1953 folio of T.S. Eliot's work, The Hollow Men. Four woodcuts and two etchings by Reopel accompany the text. It was produced by WAM (Worcester Art Museum) Press.

Reopel's style is often said to be that of the "new humanism" in the Boston Expressionist School. Nick Capasso noted that the style thrived in the 1950s and "enjoyed a great deal of support in local museums and galleries, especially The Institute of Contemporary Art, DeCordova and Dana Museum (later [called] DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park), and the Boris Mirski Gallery."

Writer Guen captures this "new humanism" in describing Reopel's work: "The human hand or foot is drawn not as an exercise in the wonders of anatomy, but as an exploration into character. The artist seems to consistently search out that which lies behind the physical trait. And having discovered it, she presents it in whispers. There is nothing blatant or overt about these drawings. Miss Reopel prefers to make her statements by way of inference -- and we are grateful." 

Reopel was raised in Auburn. Her father was a local musician, Ernest Reopel. She also studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Arts, Oxford University, England, and the Yale Norfolk Art School. She was an Associate Professor of Art at Swain School, Wheaton College and the University of New Hampshire. She was married to fellow artist Mel Zabarsky, whom she met at the Worcester Art Museum. The couple remained together for 64 years.

Reopel was the recipient of numerous awards for her work and hand shown in such prestigious venues as the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. She died on January 16, 2019. She is buried in Portsmouth, NH.  

Aviator Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Sr. was born in Worcester 1896. He was the father of the more famous pilot, Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon. Aldrin senior was a decorated veteran who served in both World War I and II. He was a career military officer from 1917 to 1956 in the United States Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force. He rose to the rank of colonel.

He was a graduate of Clark University (1915), where he studied with "Rocketman" Robert Goddard. He was also a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1916). He joined the military in 1917 and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corps.

In 1918, Aldrin studied at the School of Aeronautical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was awarded an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering.

According to Wiki, Aldrin returned to active duty during WWII. He was the "Commanding Officer of Newark Airport, New Jersey, he then became the commander of the Sea Search Attack Section of the Eighth Air Force in England in May 1942. In October he moved to Washington, D.C. as the Civilian Technical Service officer."

Wiki also reported that in 1943, Aldrin became the Sea Search Attack Unit Liaison Officer with Headquarters in the United States Army Air Forces. The following year, he went to Wright Field, Ohio, as a Design and Development Officer with the 4020th Army Air Force Base Unit.

He served there as a "project engineer on experimental production aircraft until January 1945, and then as Chief of the Operational Aids Branch with the 4020th Army Air Force Base Unit until November 1945."

After the war, Aldrin left active duty but "remained a reservist until he retired from the Air Force Reserve with the rank of colonel on 1 May 1956. ... He later became a consultant to the manned space flight safety director of the NASA."

Aldrin was married to Marion (Moon) Aldrin who suffered from severe depression. She committed suicide in 1968. 

Edwin Eugene Aldrin died in 1974. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Swimmer Coralie May O'Connor was born in Worcester in 1934. She was a competitive swimmer with Olympic experience. In 1952, she was a member of the U.S. team in Helsinki, Finland.

In an interview with Autumn Walczak and Ashley Abad for the Worcester Women's Oral History Project, O'Connor talked about her start. "I was 12 when I did my first competition. My mother made me do it," she said laughing. ...
"There wasn’t any swim team for girls back then. My parents were able to talk to the swim coach at the Lincoln Square Boys Club into having me coming down and it would be just me. He would watch me swim and make corrections."


O'Connor spent the first four years of her life on Beverly Road before moving to Chatham Place, near St. Paul's Cathedral. She went to public schools before heading to college at Purdue. It was the university's swim team that qualified for the Olympics.   

From the original caption: Members of the U. S. Olympic swimming and diving teams are shown lined up beside the Olympic Pool at Helsinki. Left to right are: Carol Frick of the Orbach A.A., N.Y.C.; Jackie La Vine of the Chicago Town Club; Juno Irwin of Pasadena, California A.C.; Paula Myers and Pat McCormick, both of the Los Angeles A.C.; Evelyn Kawamoto, of Hawaii; Zoe Ann Jensen, of Oakland, California; Carolyn Green, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, S.A.; Gail Peters, of Washington, D.C.; Barbara Stark, of Berkeley, California; July Alderson, of Chicago, Town Club; Judy Cornell, of Portland, Oregon; Coralee O'Connor, [sic] of Worcester, Massachusetts; Della Sehorn, of Portland, Oregon, Columbia, A.C.; Maralee Stephen, of Chicago, Illinois; Lake Shore, A.C.; Mary Freeman, of Washington, D.C.; Delia Muelenkamp, of San Francisco, California; Sharon Geary of Los Angeles, A.C.; and Judy Roberts of Ind. 

"We qualified in a national swim meet, which was in Indianapolis," O'Connor said. "And after we qualified, the team all got together and they issued our uniforms, and things like what you see them wearing in the opening ceremonies. And then we got on a plane and went to New York, and then we flew from New York to Helsinki, Finland, and the training out there in Finland with the pool, 50 meters was really great, kind of scary. It was fun, when you come out of your dormitory, there would be little kids hanging around [asking] 'Can we have your autograph?'” 

O'Connor competed in the 100-meter backstroke and according to Sportsreference.com she, unfortunately, "failed to get out of the heats in the backstroke at the 1952 Olympics, but her best year was 1955. That year she won the AAU indoors 100-yard backstroke, and swam at the Pan American Games where she won a gold medal in the 4x100 meter medley relay and a silver medal in the 100 backstroke."

O'Connor retired from competitive swimming in the early 1960s and taught physical education in the Worcester Public Schools. For five of those years, she coached the boys' swim team at Worcester Academy. She also coached the Worcester Swim Club, a private competitive club, which produced some of the city's best swimmers.

Now in her 80s, O'Connor is a member of the Worcester Boys & Girls Club Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Mixed Media

Pop art pioneer Robert Watson Munford was born in Worcester in 1925. His father, Walter F. Munford, was the one-time president of U.S. Steel. Young Robert was a student at Worcester Academy before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII.

After the war, he chose not to follow in his father's footsteps, but to pursue a life in art. He studied at a host of institutions, including Ohio State University, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the University of Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and the Art Students League of New York.

According to Melinda Munford Jaques, the majority of Munford's adult life was "spent in New York and Europe. Most of his work done from 1956 to 1967 was painted, shown and sold in Europe (Spain, England, France, and Germany). Work before and after these years was done in the U.S. From 1971 to 1991 he was Professor of Painting, Drawing, and Graphics at Southampton College of Long Island University.


"He was one of the first Americans to express pop art ideas in his paintings while living in Paris in the early 1960s." Art critic and poet John Ashbury expressed this in one of his art reviews in the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune in the early 1960s. This was predominately figurative work."

The work of Munford is in the permanent collections of such prestigious venues as The Museum of Modern Art in NY, The New York Public Library, and The Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C., among others.

Gouache, Mixed Media

Munford died in Water Mill, New York in 1991.

Actor William Courtenay was born in Worcester in 1875. His given name was William Hancock Kelly. Wiki reports that before his considerable Broadway and film career took off, Courtenay appeared in director Alexander Black's 1894 slideshow called Miss Jerry. "This was a sort of alternative entertainment to a new device by Thomas Edison called a Kinetoscope a la moving pictures."

A graduate of Holy Cross College, Courtenay, who has been described as a tall, handsome leading man who played largely romantic roles -- "probably best remembered for playing opposite Doris Keane, in the long-running hit Romance." In 1902, he starred in Iris Camille with his future pride, Virginia Harned. The couple also appeared together in The Light That Lies in a Woman's Eyes. 

The listing of Courtenay in Who Was Who in the Theatre: 1912-1976, tells us that the actor appeared in an early revival of Beau Brummel and the American premiere of Cyrano de Bergerac. "In 1913 he was chosen for the lead in Romance by Edward Sheldon and starring Doris Keane in the role of a lifetime. The lead role in this -- soon to be famous and very long-running play -- made Courtenay a celebrity. Sheldon had originally offered the part to his friend, actor John Barrymore, who declined and later regretted it. Keane and Courtenay performed the play over a thousand performances."

Wiki also reported that in 1915, "some twenty years after Miss Jerry, Courtenay began appearing in silent films. Still handsome and quite famous as an actor he worked for such studios as William A. Brady's World Pictures, Vitagraph and most of all Pathe. For the next fifteen years, he appeared alternatively in plays and motion pictures. His first of five sound films, Evidence for Warner Brothers, is lost. His penultimate sound film Three Faces East with Constance Bennett is restored and on Warner on-demand DVD."

Courtenay died in 1933 in Rye, New York. He was 57.

The United States Women's Olympic Basketball team, Rojcewicz. front row at far right. 

Basketball player Susan Marie Rojcewicz was born in Worcester in 1953. She is a member of the Connecticut Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, class of 2000. The Connecticut Hall noted that Rojcewicz "played for Southern Connecticut State College and Coach Louise O’Neal when SCSC was a national powerhouse team. A three-year starter for Southern, Rojcewicz averaged 14 points a game on teams that were ranked third in the nation in 1973 and 1974.

"After being named a Kodak All-American in 1975, Rojcewicz played on the United States National Team and was on the United States Pan-American Team which won the Gold Medal in Mexico City. She also played on the first ever United States Olympic Women’s Basketball Team, which won the 1976 Silver Medal in Montreal."

She was a 5' 6 and 1/2" standout guard at Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, who played on the 1975 World Championships team and, that same year, the Pan American Games Team. The U.S. team went undefeated in the tournament and won the gold medal, which was the team's first in more than a decade. The following year, Rojcewicz was named to the USA Basketball National Team, which represented the United States at the Olympics.

Upon graduation, Rojcewicz stayed in the game of basketball, taking a position as a physical education teacher and assistant basketball coach at Penn State University. According to Sportreference.com, Rojcewicz later moved on to Stanford University as an assistant coach, and "in 1982 was appointed head basketball coach at the [University of San Francisco]. While at Stanford she supplemented her B.A. degree by earning a masters degree in education."

Writer William Ellsworth Smythe was born on Christmas Eve in Worcester in 1861. The son of a wealthy shoe manufacturer, Smythe was a national irrigation advocate best known as the founder of the Little Landers movement.

His parents were Abbie (Bailey) Smythe and William Augustus Smythe of Worcester. In high school, W.E. Smythe was the editor of his school newspaper. In the Journal of San Diego History editor James E. Moss said that his "extraordinary talent with the written and spoken word came to light during his high school years. Choosing the printer’s trade to a college education he carved out a journalistic career for himself, serving as editor of the small town Medford Mercury at age nineteen. He thereafter moved on to the Boston Herald and engaged in an unsuccessful book publishing venture."

Moss also noted that Sythme's boyhood hero, "reputedly, had been Horace Greeley and so it is not surprising that the West represented an opportunity to him in 1888 when he became editor and publisher of the Kearney (Nebraska) Expositor." He would later become the editor of the Omaha Bee.

In her book, Making the San Fernando Valley: Rural Landscapes, Urban Development, and White Privilege (Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation), Laura R. Barraclough said, "with a background in journalism, he gave speeches across the United States, in which he promoted the 'back to the land' movement and the virtues of the small family farm.

Between the Desert and the Sown by Mary Hallock Foote published in Smythe's book, Conquest of Arid America

"Smythe contributed regularly to the nation's largest popular magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and Harpers, and was the 20th century West correspondent for Charles Fletcher Lummis's Land of Sunshine. Smythe was a firm believer that small farms bred both a strong sense of community and active democratic participation." 

The Little Landers movement aimed to "settle small suburban lots with people who would farm their own properties, live off the land and sell or trade the surplus for needed income," writes Joe Stone of the San Diego Tribune. "In 1908 he set up such a colony in the Tijuana River valley (now San Ysidro, California), and in 1913 he joined in developing a similar venture in Tujunga, California."

In the introduction to his nationally famous book, Conquest of Arid America, written at the onset of the Great Plain States drought of 1890, Smythe, quoting Joaquin Miller said, "'Arid America! we have watered it with our tears." "And so we have." The author added, "Now we are to build it in toil, in pain, in patience, humbling ourselves in the dust of failure, yet moving ever forward in that pathway of co-operation and brotherhood of which the Newlands Irrigation Law is the most shining guidepost thus far erected by the genius of our statesmanship."

Smythe wrote a series of books on the subject of the watering of America. He was also a U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Veterans Land Settlement in the wake of WWI.

He died in New York City in 1922.


This is a work in progress. Please send all suggestions, comments, and corrections to walnutharmonicas@gmail.com.   Thank you.