Month: June 2008

… of Justice Clarence Thomas. He’s 60.

… of American Idol’s Randy Jackson. He’s 52.

… of Oscar-winner Frances McDormand. She’s 51. Miss McDormand has had three Oscar nominations for best supporting actress in addition to her winning best actress performance in Fargo.

… of K.T. Tunstall. Kate is 33.

Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm

Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

… of LaDainian Tomlinson. He’s 29.

Choreographer Bob Fosse was born on this date in 1927.

According to many sources, Killer Angels author Michael Shaara was born on this date in 1929. According to his biography at son Jeff Shaara’s web site, the father was born in 1928. The Killer Angels, which won the Pulitzer Prize and is regarded by many as the best Civil War novel, “was rejected by the first fifteen publishers who saw the manuscript.”

Alfred Charles Kinsey was born on this date in 1894. And so was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who, at age 42, gave up his throne for the woman he loved. After just 10 months as king, Edward VIII defied the British establishment to marry Mrs. Bessie Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American. One wonders what Henry VIII would have thought of the fuss. (The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was renamed the House of Windsor in 1917.)

Jane Russell is 87 today. She was 36D when she made The Outlaw for Howard Hughes. He discovered her at his dentist, where she was a receptionist.

Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross, the wife and husband on the TV sitcom Family Ties, are both 61 today. Alex, their son on the show, was played by Michael J. Fox, who was 46 on June 9th.

Novelist Ian McEwan is 60.

Kathy Mattea is 48.

Juliette Lewis is 35 today. She was 18 when she played the daughter in Cape Fear, and received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination.

Prince William is 26.

It doesn’t really matter but existentialist philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre was born on this date in 1905.

Sartre became a teacher. At a time when the European teaching style was lecturing from a distance, he drank with his students at local bars, played cards and ping-pong with them, and joined them for picnics on the beach. In his spare time he began to write a novel called Nausea (1938). The book was his first major success, and it made him famous. People called him the French Kafka. He went on to write Being and Nothingness (1943), about the meaning of freedom. He wrote, “Hell is other people.” And, “If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.”

The Writer’s Almanac

Today is the birthday

… of Olympia Dukakis. She’s 77. Miss Dukakis won the Oscar for best supporting actress for Moonstruck.

… of Martin Landau. He’s 77. Mr. Landau has been nominated for three best supporting actor Oscars, winning of course for Ed Wood.

… of Danny Aiello. He’s 75. Mr. Aiello was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for Do The Right Thing.

… of John Mahoney. This retired Seattle cop, the father of two psychiatrists, is 68. You know, Frasier’s dad, Martin Crane.

… of Brian Wilson; he’s 66. Perhaps the greatest American composer of popular music of the past 40+ years, Wilson is an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the self-destructive, yet creative genius behind the Beach Boys.

… of Anne Murray, 63.

… of Bob Vila. He’s 62, so it’s not just “This Old House” that’s old anymore.

… of Lionel Richie, 59.

… of John Goodman. He’s 56. Goodman has been nominated for eight Emmys without a victory. He did win a Golden Globe for playing Roseanne’s husband Dan.

… of Nicole Kidman. She’s 41. Nominated for best actress twice, Miss Kidman won the Oscar for The Hours.

Chet Atkins was born on June 20th in 1924. He died of lung cancer in 2001.

Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins’ case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll, as well. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins’ thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers. Even the likes of Ted Nugent has credited Atkins with inspiring him to take up the instrument. ”I think he influenced everybody who picked up a guitar,” said Duane Eddy.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Errol Flynn was born on June 20th in 1909. Flynn was from Tasmania, Australia — his mother was descended from one of the Bounty mutineers. The role that made him a sensation was Captain Blood in 1935. Most of his movie portrayals were of the swashbuckle type. Drugs and alcohol took their toll, and Flynn died at age 50.

Flynn’s yacht registration was among the records NewMexiKen once managed. The purpose for the vessel he wrote on the government form was: “Pleasure! Pleasure! Pleasure!”

Lillian Hellman was born on June 20th in 1905.

Her first big success was The Children’s Hour — which premiered on Broadway in 1934 — about a pompous boarding school child who damaged the reputations of the two school directors by accusing them of being lesbians. The play was banned in many places, including Boston and Chicago. Hellman later adapted the play for film, changing the scandalous relationship into a love triangle, and it came out as These Three in 1936.

She wrote several volumes of memoirs, including An Unfinished Woman (1969), about her New Orleans childhood; Pentimento (1973), which inspired a film; and Scoundrel Time (1976), which included an account of her testimony before the Un-American Activities House Committee.

Hellman said, “People change and forget to tell each other.”

The Writer’s Almanac