Problem: Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 - July 2, 1987) was an American musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven. Bennett choreographed Promises, Promises, Follies and Company. In 1976, he won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Choreography for the musical A Chorus Line.

Bennett was born Michael Bennett DiFiglia in Buffalo, New York, the son of Helen (nee Ternoff), a secretary, and Salvatore Joseph DiFiglia, a factory worker. His father was Roman Catholic and Italian American and his mother was Jewish. He studied dance and choreography in his teens and staged a number of shows in his local high school before dropping out to accept the role of Baby John in the US and European tours of West Side Story. Bennett's career as a Broadway dancer began in the 1961 Betty Comden-Adolph Green-Jule Styne musical Subways Are for Sleeping, after which he appeared in Meredith Willson's Here's Love and the short-lived Bajour. In the mid-1960s he was a featured dancer on the NBC pop music series Hullabaloo, where he met fellow dancer Donna McKechnie. Bennett made his choreographic debut with A Joyful Noise (1966), which lasted only twelve performances, and in 1967 followed it with another failure, Henry, Sweet Henry (based on the Peter Sellers film The World of Henry Orient). Success finally arrived in 1968, when he choreographed the hit musical Promises, Promises on Broadway. With a contemporary pop score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, a wisecracking book by Neil Simon and Bennett's well-received production numbers, including "Turkey Lurkey Time", the show ran for 1,281 performances. Over the next few years, he earned praise for his work on the straight play Twigs with Sada Thompson and the musical Coco with Katharine Hepburn. These were followed by two Stephen Sondheim productions, Company and Follies co-directed with Hal Prince. In 1973, Bennett was asked by producers Joseph Kipness and Larry Kasha to take over the ailing Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields musical Seesaw. In replacing the director Ed Sherin and choreographer Grover Dale, he asked for absolute control over the production as director and choreographer and received credit as "having written, directed, and choreographed" the show.

Who are his parents?

Answer with quotes: the son of Helen (nee Ternoff), a secretary, and Salvatore Joseph DiFiglia, a factory worker.

Problem: Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, daughter to Gilbert Ronstadt (1911-1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary (Copeman) Ronstadt (1914-1982), a homemaker. Ronstadt was raised on the family's 10-acre (4 ha) ranch with her siblings Peter (who served as Tucson's Chief of Police for 10 years, 1981-1991), Michael J., and Gretchen (Suzy). The family was featured in Family Circle magazine in 1953. Linda's father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of German, English, and Mexican ancestry.

Ronstadt's early family life was filled with music and tradition, which influenced the stylistic and musical choices she later made in her career. Growing up, she listened to many types of music, including Mexican music, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood. Ronstadt has remarked that everything she has recorded on her own records - rock 'n' roll, jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, opera, country, choral, and mariachi - is all music she heard her family sing in their living room, or heard played on the radio, by the age of 10. She credits her mother for her appreciation of Gilbert and Sullivan and her father for introducing her to the traditional pop and Great American Songbook repertoire that she would, in turn, help reintroduce to an entire generation. Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as Lola Beltran and Edith Piaf; she has called their singing and rhythms "more like Greek music ... It's sort of like 6/8 time signature ... very hard driving and very intense." She also drew influence from country singer Hank Williams. She has said that "all girl singers" eventually "have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday". Of Maria Callas, Ronstadt says, "There's no one in her league. That's it. Period. I learn more ... about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays. ... She's the greatest chick singer ever." She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th-century singing, particularly opera, back into the bel canto "natural style of singing". A self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and 1960s, Ronstadt is a fan of its eclectic and diverse music programming.

What was her earliest influence ?

Answer with quotes:
Growing up, she listened to many types of music, including Mexican music, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood.