Business and Industry

Abramovich, Roman

Abramovich was born in Saratov in southern Russia. His mother died when he was 18 months old, and his father was killed in a construction accident when he was four. He was first taken to li... [more]

Agnelli, Umberto

Agnelli was the youngest of seven children of the third generation of the greatItalian Fiat automobile manufacturing dynasty. The children's father died in 1935 ina plane crash and their mo... [more]

Agnelli, Umberto

Agnelli was the youngest of seven children of the third generation of the greatItalian Fiat automobile manufacturing dynasty. The children's father died in 1935 ina plane crash and their mo... [more]

Aspinall, John Victor

Aspinall was adopted by a British Indian Army colonel as a very young child and spent most of his childhood in English boarding schools. He was expelled from Cambridge University for faking... [more]

Astor, Joshua

Astor is the birth son of Joe "Gannex" Kagan, friend of the British prime minister Harold Wilson, but was adopted aged three by his step-father, Michael Astor, MP (one of the weal... [more]

Bartholomew, Freddie

Bartholomew was born in Dublin but abandoned by his parents to the care of an aunt, Millicent Mary Bartholomew. In 1930 he began his film career as a child star with Fascination, and... [more]

Berlin, Andy

Berlin was adopted as a baby and grew up in a loving family in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, he felt different from others, even fantasizing that his birth parents were Martians. ... [more]

Brady, John Green

Brady was born in New York. His mother died when he was very young. His father remarried, but Brady seems to have been unhappy with his step-mother, and he ran away from home when he was ei... [more]

Brown, Leslie Calvin

Brown and his twin brother, born in a Miami ghetto, were adopted at six weeks of age by a single woman. He was hyperactive as a child and labeled a slow learner. After high school he bec... [more]

Carlson, Richard Warner

Carlson, an adoptee, has been a journalist for United Press International and the three major US television networks, CBS, NBC and ABC. He has been a television presenter and news broadcast... [more]