Problem: Terry Wayne Fator was born June 10, 1965, in Dallas, Texas, the son of Jephtha Wesley and Edith Marie Clifton, later known as Marie Sligh. He has an older brother, Jephtha Jr., and a younger sister, Deborah. Fator's second cousin is Chris Sligh, an American Idol season six finalist. Terry Fator says in his audio commentary of Terry Fator: Live from Las Vegas (2009) that he went to college at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Fator left the band and did a solo act combining comedy and ventriloquism but for many years had little success. "Fairs would stick me on a little stage in the back of fair and have me do three shows in the hottest part of the afternoon," related Fator. "I had heat stroke a couple of times, almost passed out."  The low point of his career, Fator said, was when he appeared at a 1,000 seat theater and had only one person in the audience. Discouraged, Fator contemplated pursuing another career, but his family encouraged him to continue. Terry entered the America's Got Talent competition with the hope that the exposure if he made it to the Top 20 might help his career and cause people to want to attend his shows.  Fator's success stems from combining singing, ventriloquism, and comedy. Fator was the lead singer in bands and often did impersonations of singers Garth Brooks, Etta James, James Taylor and Dean Martin, while ventriloquism had been just a comic side gig for him. In 2005, Fator decided to combine his talents, singing, ventriloquism, comedy, and impersonations. "I had one of my characters sing Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places" and the audience went crazy," Fator said. "Boy, that was when my life changed." After his initial success Fator revamped his act. "It took me six months and I completely rewrote the show," says Fator. "It was then that people really noticed and I started getting standing ovations at the end of every show,"  Prior to winning America's Got Talent, Fator opened for Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Neal McCoy, and Styx. Fator also performed for corporate giants General Motors and AT&T.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

Answer with quotes: The low point of his career, Fator said, was when he appeared at a 1,000 seat theater and had only one person in the audience.


Problem: Rockefeller was born in New York City, New York. He grew up in an eight-story house at 10 West 54th Street, the tallest private residence ever built in the city. Rockefeller was the youngest of six children born to financier John Davison Rockefeller Jr. and socialite Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich. John Jr. was the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman.

Rockefeller traveled widely and met with both foreign rulers and U.S. presidents, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower. At times he served as an unofficial emissary on high-level business. Among the foreign leaders he met were Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, and Mikhail Gorbachev.  In 1968, he declined an offer from his brother Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York, to appoint him to Robert F. Kennedy's Senate seat after Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968, a post Nelson also offered to their nephew John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV. President Jimmy Carter offered him the position of United States Secretary of the Treasury but he declined.  Rockefeller was criticized for befriending foreign autocrats in order to expand Chase interests in their countries. The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in 2002 that Rockefeller "spent his life in the club of the ruling class and was loyal to members of the club, no matter what they did." He noted that Rockefeller had cut profitable deals with "oil-rich dictators", "Soviet party bosses" and "Chinese perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution".  Rockefeller met Henry Kissinger in 1954, when Kissinger was appointed a director of a seminal Council on Foreign Relations study group on nuclear weapons, of which David Rockefeller was a member. He named Kissinger to the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and consulted with him frequently, with the subjects including the Chase Bank's interests in Chile and the possibility of the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. Rockefeller supported his "opening of China" initiative in 1971 as it afforded banking opportunities for the Chase Bank.  Though a lifelong Republican and party contributor, he was a member of the moderate "Rockefeller Republicans" that arose out of the political ambitions and public policy stance of his brother Nelson. In 2006 he teamed up with former Goldman Sachs executives and others to form a fund-raising group based in Washington, Republicans Who Care, that supported moderate Republican candidates over more ideological contenders.

Was he able to accomplish anything using these ties?

Answer with quotes:
he teamed up with former Goldman Sachs executives and others to form a fund-raising group based in Washington,