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People - K
Famous and Infamous People, Leaders & Luminaries in Colorado Arts, Culture & Folklore
People Pages: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ - Hall of Fame -
- Ronny Kae - Arvada local Ronny Kae was one of America's big-time drummers. He pounded for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Bobby Darin. Ronnie passed away on 95 July 31 in Denver at age 55. He originally hailed from New York and came to the Denver area in 1960. He worked many of the clubs here and recorded a few hits of his own leading to fame and fortune.
- Doug Kauffman (Douglas Jay Kauffman)
1999 photo by CAN
DOB: 1960
- Nobody In Particular Presents/event promoter
- Ogden Theater/owner
- Lion's Lair/owner
- Gothic Theater/owner (until 1995)Band membership has reportedly included:
- Bop Street/bass player (circa 85)
- The Groove Kings
- The Jeromes (circa 1999)
- Tasmanian Devils/
- The Works/ c.83Leading independent concert promoter Doug Kauffman learned the importance of on-track booking while in a band that got unpleasantly paired up with an incongruous act. He has also sold kitchen knives, paved driveways, and done restaurant work. Doug has lived mostly in the Denver area since the early 1980s. His local experiences left him on alert that concert king Barry Fey was failing to book a lot of good acts. Fey has since retired.
The first show Doug produced was John Cale of the Velvet Underground at the Broadway club, later known as 1082 and the Wreck Room. This editor was present at two of Doug's very first shows (Beat Farmers and Chille Peppers) and recalls how Doug would come around and give a personal pitch to get you there. He went on to rent the Gothic Theater in Englewood, then he bought it. He had planned to develop it like the Ogden. In early '95 he sold it for a good profit after encountering too much resistence from local government hacks.
Doug hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan a pleasant little college town of green trees just 25 minutes out of Detroit. This editor spent a few weeks in Ann Arbor on four occasions in the very early 70s, knew some of its finer denizens, and patronized Discount Records when an unknown James Osterberg worked there (around the time he became Iggy and the Iguanas before becoming Iggy Pop). The vicinity of Kauffman's roots have also been home soil to George Clinton, Patti Smith, the MC5, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, radical John Sinclair, a few infamous LSD labs, and Barry Gordy's Motown sound of the mid sixties.
Kauffman also spent some time living in San Francisco before returning to Denver. More recently DK has been seen driving his new black Mercedez Benz. In the late 1990s he has apparently purchased his favorite bar, Lion's Lair at Colfax and Vine and taken up residence in his newly purchased mansion at 1544 Race Street, directly adjacent to the former 1970s residence of India's glow-boy spiritual promoter Guru Maharaji (aka God) where Rene Davis of the Chicago Seven fame also hung out.
See also: Promoters section: Nobody In Particular Presents.
- Grace Kelly
born: Philadelphia, 1928 November 12
died: 1982 September 13
Legend has it that Grace Kelly was living in northwest Denver when she got her call to fame in the form of a telegram asking her to appear in a Hollywood film. She reportedly boarded in a two story house at 4020 Raleigh Street from June through August of 1951 (age 22). During that season she was a summer stock actress at Elitch's, a few blocks away where the young damsel was sometimes seen riding a bicycle on the lot.
Denver resident Dee Farrell of the 4020 Raleigh address related the story to CAN that Kelly was called to act in the film High Noon. But Cinemania indicates High Noon (1952) was not Kelly's first film. That would have been Fourteen Hours in 1951. Farrell further relates that a surviving elderly woman neighbor directly next door (age 87 at this report) still recalls knowing and speaking with Kelly on the block regularly in 1951. Farrell further verifies the address from the first edition of a book called "Grace" by Robert Lacey and says the address mention fails to appear in the second edition. Dee relates that Denver is mentioned in the book "Grace of Monaco" by Steven Englund. Kelly reportedly patronized a restaurant at 2915 W. 44th Avenue (at Federal Blvsd.) more recently known as Three Sons Italian Restaurant
Our princess hailed from a well-to-do Philadelphia family and made her stage debut on Broadway in 1948 (age 20). Around 1951 she sought acting counsel from Sanford Meisner, one of the first persons to launch the famous Method school of acting. In 1956 Kelly became the Princess of Monaco when she married Prince Ranier III and bore him three children. In 1982 (age 53) she had a stroke while driving a car and was killed as the car went over a high cliff. I can never shake the sultry intimacy of Grace Kelly (age 26) as Frances Stevens swimming with jewel thief John Robie (Carey Grant) around a floating pier in To Catch a Thief (Spring of 1954). It was a Hitchcock film set on the French Riviera. A quote attributed to Kelly says "I would like to be remembered as a decent human being and a caring one." Given this and the way she died in a horrible accident, a certain more recent princess was sometimes compared to her.
- info sources: Dee Farrell in callback interview 98Ja12Mo; Cinemania web site and sites linked above. Farrell related being the second owner of 4020 Raleigh after the owner who boarded to Grace Kelly in 1951.
- Tasha's Grace Kelly Home Page
<Geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/8255/index.html>
This site has lots of relevant links.
- Jack Kerouac
photo from: Who is Jack Kerouac? web site
http://www.lehigh.edu/~nat2/kerouac.html
born: Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac 1922 March 12
died: 1969 October 25
Famed young author from Massachussetts hung out with car theives like author Neil Cassidy and did heroin in Denver's upper Larimer Street, Curtis Park and Capitol Hill neighborhoods from the time of his arrival circa 1947. His novel "On the Road" broadened the beat generation which spawned the doo-wop generation which led to the bubble gum generation which spawned the British Invasion and the punk generation which spawned the bubble grunge generation and generation X.......or so it seems. The beat lifestyle quickly became heavily imitated by eager waves of poseurs searching for identity by conforming with nonconformity. Jack perceived himself as just a regular in search of freedom and a meaningful break from a stifling existence. By putting it all into written words he vindicated bored and downtrodden souls everywhere. Thus he gave a large measure of credence to rebellious expression which heavily influenced music and radical culture for decades. Colorado Arts Net has learned that someone finally got off their ass and planted a small placard in Kerouac's memory just recently. I haven't seen it yet. I hear it tells that Kerouac came West in search of Denver's reknowned "shooting galleries." (Check the sidewalks near 15th and California Streets.) But to this day there is not one street sign or statue in Kerouac's name in all of Denver. If there was I'd steal it.
Kerouac haunts and residences in Cowtown are now revered by fans. One place Kerouac lived was at 1522 Lafayette Street on Capitol Hill.
ref: Phil Goodstein, book title: "The Ghosts of Capitol Hill" (96) and assorted sources.
- Stephen King <StephenKing.com>
Stories from this famed author of the macabre have become films. King lived in Boulder when he wrote The Shining. The "Overlook Hotel" is actually the Stanley Hotel in nearby Estes Park. Just prior to that Shining early milestone he was allegedly turned down for a job as movie critic for the Boulder Daily Camera. King lives in Bangor, Maine. "All work and no play makes Johnny a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Johnny a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Johnny a very dull boy." etc., etc.
- Vance Kirkland (1904 - 1981) -
Denver painter who hit fame long after dying, of course.
- Vance Kirkland Studio and Foundation <VanceKirkland.org> -
address: 1311 Pearl St., Denver 80203 - ph: (303) 832-8576
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