Day: October 31, 2008

It’s Halloween and the birthday

… of Astronaut Michael Collins. Collins was the guy on board the Apollo while Armstrong and Aldrin played on the moon.

… of Dan Rather. His frequency is 77.

… of David Ogden Stiers. Major Winchester is 66.

… of Jane Pauley. She’s 58.

It’s also the birthday of Michael (Bonanza/Little House on the Prairie) Landon, who was born in 1936 and died in 1991, and John Candy, born in 1950. Candy died in 1994.

The great jazz and blues singer and film actress Ethel Waters was born on this date in 1896.

Later, in the 1930s, Waters found the mainstream of popular music, including jazz and congenial, and brought to it a combination of tragedy (in Harold Arlen’s Stormy Weather, 1933) and comedy (in H. I. Marshall’s You Can’t Stop Me From Loving You, 1931) which, in its range, was unsurpassed by any other popular singer. …

Waters was the first black entertainer to move successfully from the vaudeville and nightclub circuits to what blacks called “the white time” (the West Indian Bert Williams had done this earlier in the Ziegfield Follies — but in blackface). Her vocal resources were adequate though unexceptional, but this shortcoming was mitigated by an innate theatrical flair that enabled her to project the character and situation of every song she performed. (PBS – JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns)

Ms. Waters was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar in 1949 for her part in “Pinky.” Such was the segregation in film and television at that time that Waters next played the title role in “Beulah” an early fifties situation comedy. Beulah was a domestic for a white family. Waters was succeeded in the role by Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel, then Louise Beavers, and finally Amanda Randolph.

Ethel Waters died in 1977.

Ehrich Weiss, better known to us as Harry Houdini, died on this date — Halloween — in 1926.

But during a stay in Montreal in October, Houdini was assaulted by a young man in his dressing room. The stomach blows — which he had invited as a test of his legendary strength — aggravated a case of appendicitis, and he soon became seriously ill. In a final display of stamina and willpower, Houdini performed the next day and again in Detroit. His appendix was removed on October 25th, but the delay had allowed an infection to set in, and he died in Detroit on Halloween.

Source: The American Experience, which has a brief biography.

Nevada became the 36th state on this date in 1864, just in time to cast two electoral votes for Abraham Lincoln.

Nevada was admitted to the Union as the 36th state on this date in 1864.

In Spanish “nevada” means snow-capped.
The Nevada state bird: Mountain Bluebird
State animal: Desert Bighorn Sheep
State reptile: Desert Tortoise
Nevada is the seventh largest state: 110,540 square miles. It has 17 counties.