1885 births

Pedro Humberto Allende Sarón (July 29, 1885 – August 17, 1959) was one of the most important Chilean composers of the twentieth century. He obtained the prestigious Premio Nacional de Arte in 1945.

Paul-Laurent-Jean-Louis Mazé, SS.CC. (1885–1976) was Archbishop, and later Archbishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Papeete, French Polynesia.
Born on 4 April 1885 in Pleyben, France, he was ordained a priest in the order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on 25 September 1910, aged 25. The Principal Consecrator was Bishop Pierre-Marie-David Le Cadre, SS.CC.
On 8 November 1938, aged 53, he was appointed as Vicar Apostolic of Tahiti, French Polynesia, and as Titular Bishop of Ascalon and ordained on 30 April 1939.
On 21 June 1966, aged 81, he was appointed Archbishop, retiring on 5 March 1973, aged 87, and became Archbishop Emeritus. He died on 21 December 1976, aged 91.

Raoul Villain (September 19, 1885 – September 17, 1936) was a French nationalist. He is primarily remembered for his assassination of the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès on July 31, 1914, in Paris. Villain was acquitted by a jury of peers in 1919 and later fled to the Balearic island of Ibiza, where he was killed during the first stages of the Spanish Civil War.

René Grousset (5 September 1885 – 12 September 1952) was a French historian, curator of both the Cernuschi and Guimet Museums in Paris, and a member of the prestigious Académie française. He wrote several major works on Asiatic and Oriental civilizations, with his two most important works being Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem (1934–1936) and The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (1939), both of which were considered standard references on the subject.

André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.

Eduard Künneke (also seen as Edward and spelled Künnecke) (27 January 1885 – 27 October 1953 in Berlin) was a German composer notable for his operettas, operas, theatre music and some orchestral works.
Kuenneke was born in Emmerich, Lower Rhine. After obtaining his school diploma he moved in 1903 to Berlin where he studied musicology and the history of literature; he translated Beowulf into German. He was subsequently accepted into Max Bruch's master-school for musical composition attached to the Royal Academy of Arts. By 1907 Kuenneke was already a repetiteur and chorus master at a Berlin operetta theatre, the Neues Operettentheater am Schiffbauerdamm, but relinquished his post as chorus master after his opera Robins Ende (1909) was premiered in Mannheim and Coeur-As (1913) in Dresden. Thereafter he received productions at 38 German opera houses. From 1908 to 1910 he also worked as a music director for Odeon Records and conducted (without label credit) two of the earliest complete symphony recordings, the Beethoven Fifth and Sixth Symphonies with the "Grosses Odeon Streich-Orchester".
In 1911 Künneke became a conductor of the German Theatre in Berlin, where he wrote incidental music for Max Reinhardt including music for Reinhardt’s staging of Part Two of Goethe's Faust. With the coming of The Great War he became a horn player and conductor in a regimental band. In 1916 the focus of his interests began to shift to musical comedy. However, due to financial woes he took a post as serial conductor for Heinrich Berté's prettified Schubert pastiche Das Dreimaderlhaus (Blossom Time). This inspired him to write an equally maudlin singspiel Das Dorf ohne Glocke (The Village without a Bell)(1919). Subsequently he composed one operetta after another, altogether more than a dozen, and all at a high level of craftsmanship. He toured the US but, as one writer put it, "his experiences were not exactly positive". During the National Socialist years he advanced to become the "Master of German Operetta".
The trauma of the war years had its effect upon Künneke and with a heart complaint he withdrew into the solitude of his study as an "independent scholar". He died on 27 October 1953. At the funeral ceremony in Berlin he was lauded as the last great figure and noblest musician of Berlin operetta.
Künneke's graceful music is distinguished by its rhythm and striking harmonies. His best-known work is the 1921 operetta Der Vetter aus Dingsda; many of his songs are still familiar today.
In 1926, when his operetta Lady Hamilton was premiered in Breslau, he formed what became a long friendship with the conductor Franz Marszalek. Marszalek was a dedicated advocate of Künneke's music, and during his tenure at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne (1949–65) made numerous recordings of his works (many currently unavailable) with the Cologne Radio Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Künneke's daughter was the actress and singer Evelyn Künneke.

Edwin DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. He and his wife Dorothy, a playwright, adapted it as a 1927 play of the same name. The couple worked with composer George Gershwin to adapt the work as the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. It was later adapted as a 1959 film of the same name.
Heyward also wrote poetry and other novels and plays. He wrote the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939).

Will Fyffe, CBE (16 February 1885 – 14 December 1947) was a Scottish music hall and performing artist on stage and screen during the 1930s and 1940s.
Fyffe made his debut in his father's stock company at age 6. He travelled extensively throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK, playing the numerous music halls of the time, where he performed his sketches and sang his songs in an inimitable style. During the 1930s, he was one of the highest paid musical hall artists in Britain.
In addition, Fyffe appeared in 23 major films of the era (American and British), and he recorded over 30 songs.
His singer-songwriter skills are still well-known today, particularly his composition "I Belong to Glasgow". This song has been covered by Danny Kaye, Eartha Kitt, Gracie Fields and Kirk Douglas:

"If your money, you spend,
You've nothing to lend,
Isn't that all the better for you"As a result of this song, Fyffe became forever associated with Glasgow, but he was born 70 miles (110 km) away in the east coast city of Dundee, where a street bears his surname. Fyffe was also Freemason, who was initiated and then became a full member of Lodge St John, Shotts No 471. He left some rare footage of his stage act, which gives a glimpse of stage life in these times. In the footage, he performs the "Broomielaw" sketch and sings his song "Twelve and a Tanner a Bottle". The footage came about as a result of a screen test, shot for Pathe in New York in 1929.
Fyffe died after falling from a window in the Rusacks Hotel in St Andrews in December 1947. The fall has been attributed to dizziness caused by an operation on his ear.

Aureliano Pertile (9 November 1885 – 11 January 1952) was an Italian lyric tenor. Many critics consider him one of the most exciting operatic artists of the inter-war period, and one of the most important tenors of the 20th century.