IN: William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 - November 1, 2006) was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work. Styron was best known for his novels, including: Lie Down in Darkness (1951), his acclaimed first work, published when he was 26; The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), narrated by Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 Virginian slave revolt; Sophie's Choice (1979), a story "told through the eyes of a young aspiring writer from the South, about a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz and her brilliant but psychotic Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn". In 1985, he suffered from his first serious bout with depression.

Styron was born in the Hilton Village historic district of Newport News, Virginia, the son of Pauline Margaret (Abraham) and William Clark Styron. He grew up in the South and was steeped in its history. His birthplace was less than a hundred miles from the site of Nat Turner's slave rebellion, later the source for Styron's most famous and controversial novel. Although Styron's paternal grandparents had been slave owners, his Northern mother and liberal Southern father gave him a broad perspective on race relations. Styron's childhood was a difficult one. His father, a shipyard engineer, suffered from clinical depression, which Styron himself would later experience. His mother died from breast cancer in 1939 when Styron was still a boy, following her decade-long battle with the disease. Styron attended public school in Warwick County, first at Hilton School and then at Morrison High School (now known as Warwick High School) for two years, until his father sent him to Christchurch School, an Episcopal college-preparatory school in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Styron once said, "But of all the schools I attended...only Christchurch ever commanded something more than mere respect--which is to say, my true and abiding affection." Upon graduation, Styron enrolled in Davidson College and joined Phi Delta Theta. By the age of eighteen he was reading the writers who would have a lasting influence on his vocation as a novelist and writer, especially Thomas Wolfe. Styron transferred to Duke University in 1943 as a part of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps V-12 program aimed at fast-tracking officer candidates by enrolling them simultaneously in basic training and bachelor's degree programs. There he published his first fiction, a short story heavily influenced by William Faulkner, in an anthology of student work. Styron published several short stories in the University literary magazine, The Archive, between 1944 and 1946. Though Styron was made a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, the Japanese surrendered before his ship left San Francisco. After the war, he returned to full-time studies at Duke and completed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English in 1947.

Did he have a good childhood?

OUT: Styron's childhood was a difficult one.

IN: Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga, KLD (born February 22, 1971), known as Lea Salonga (), is a Filipina singer and actress best known for her roles in musical theatre, for supplying the singing voices of two Disney Princesses, and as a recording artist and television performer. At age 18, she originated the lead role of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon, first in the West End and then on Broadway, winning the Olivier and Theatre World Awards, and becoming the first Asian woman to win a Tony Award. Salonga is the first Filipino artist to sign with an international record label (Atlantic Records in 1993). She is also the first Philippine-based artist to have received a major album release and distribution deal in the United States, and one of the best-selling Filipino artists of all time, having sold over 19 million copies of her albums worldwide.

Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga was born at Medical Center Manila in Ermita, Manila, to Feliciano Genuino Salonga, a naval Rear admiral and shipping company owner (1929-2016), and his wife, Maria Ligaya Alcantara, nee Imutan. She spent the first six years of her childhood in Angeles City before moving to Manila. Her brother, Gerard Salonga, is a conductor. She made her professional debut in 1978 at the age of seven in the musical The King and I with Repertory Philippines. She played the title role in Annie in 1980 and appeared in other productions such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, The Rose T, The Goodbye Girl (1982), Paper Moon (1983) and The Fantasticks (1988). In 1981, she recorded her first album, Small Voice, which was certified gold in the Philippines. In 1985, she and her brother took part in the eighth Metro Manila Popular Music Festival as the interpreters for the song entry titled "Musika, Lata, Sipol at La La La" which was composed by Tess Concepcion. During the 1980s, Salonga also had several television projects through GMA Radio Television Arts where she worked as a child actor and teen idol. After the success of her first album, from 1983 to 1985, she hosted her own musical television show, Love, Lea, and was a member of the cast of German Moreno's teen variety show That's Entertainment. She acted in films, which included the family-oriented Tropang Bulilit, Like Father, Like Son, Ninja Kids, Captain Barbell and Pik Pak Boom. As a young performer, Salonga received a Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) award nomination for Best Child Actress, and three Aliw Awards for best child performer in 1980, 1981 and 1982. She released her second album, Lea, in 1988. She also opened for, and performed with, international acts such as Menudo and Stevie Wonder in their concerts in Manila in 1985 and in 1988, respectively. She finished her secondary education in 1988 at the O. B. Montessori Center in Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila, where she was a Bergamo 1 Student and an active participant in school productions. She also attended the University of the Philippines College of Music's extension program aimed at training musically talented children in music and stage movement. A college freshman studying biology at the Ateneo de Manila University when she auditioned for Miss Saigon, she intended to have a medical career. Later, in between jobs in New York, she took two courses at Fordham University's Lincoln Center.

What kind of education did she have?

OUT:
She also attended the University of the Philippines College of Music's extension program