Bob Ross

Robert Norman Ross (1942–1995) was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and spent twenty years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to master sergeant and spending much of his service in Alaska, where the mountains and snow became the subjects he would paint for the rest of his life. He has said that the job required him to be tough and loud, and that when he left the service he promised himself he would never raise his voice again.

He studied the fast "wet-on-wet" technique with painter Bill Alexander, taught classes, and in 1983 launched The Joy of Painting on public television. Over 31 seasons and more than 400 episodes, he completed a landscape in under thirty minutes each time, narrating in a soothing near-whisper and insisting that there were no mistakes, only happy accidents.

Ross died in 1995 at 52, but the show's gentle pace found a huge second life on the internet, introducing him to audiences who were not born when it aired. The permed hair, the denim shirt, and the soft brown mustache are now a permanent part of American pop culture.