Bob Ross

Robert Norman Ross was born on October 29, 1942, and served in the Air Force for twenty years, from 1961 to 1981, rising to master sergeant. Stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, he absorbed the landscapes that would fill his canvases, and he learned the fast wet-on-wet oil technique from Bill Alexander's television program. Having spent two decades in roles that required him to be tough and loud, he decided that when he left the military he would never raise his voice again.

The Joy of Painting premiered on PBS on January 11, 1983, and ran through May 17, 1994—a half-hour program where Ross painted in real-time and whispered about "happy little trees" and "happy accidents," offering a non-judgmental approach to art instruction. His permed hair, which started as a money-saving measure he came to dislike, became iconic anyway because it was part of the brand. He built Bob Ross Inc. with partners Annette and Walt Kowalski.

Ross died on July 4, 1995, of lymphoma complications at age fifty-two. His cultural reach extended far beyond his lifetime: in October 2015, Twitch broadcast a marathon of every episode for what would have been his seventy-third birthday, and 5.6 million viewers tuned in, many of them people who had grown up half-watching him on PBS afternoons.