August 16th

… is the birthday of the man with the best answer to the age-old question, “What are you going to do with a degree in history?” If you’re Fess Parker, after you get that degree at the University of Texas, you play Davy Crockett in the Disney TV classic, then Daniel Boone in the television series, move to Santa Barbara and run a vineyard and resort.

And turn 85 today.

Actor Robert Culp is 79 today. He was Bill Cosby’s sidekick (or Cosby was his) in the first TV series to feature an African-American, I Spy.

Julie Newmar, Catwoman on the Batman TV series, is 76.

Frank Gifford is 79 today. Kathie Lee Gifford is 56 today.

One-time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, Lesley Ann Warren is 63 today.

Oscar-winner James Cameron is 55. Cameron won, of course, for Titanic — writer, director, best picture.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone is 51.

Best actress Oscar nominee Angela Bassett is 51 today too.

Supporting actor Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton is 49.

Steve Carrell is 46.

Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks is 37. Originally Emily Erwin (Robison is her married name), she and her sister Martie (now Maguire) founded the group with two other classmates. The other two left and the group added Natalie Maines as the lead singer in 1995.

Football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was born on this date in 1862. Stagg, Skull and Bones at Yale, was on the first All-America team ever (1889). He coached most famously at the University of Chicago, 1892-1932. Stagg developed the man-in-motion and the lateral pass — and developed basketball as a five man game. He is in both the college football and basketball halls of fame.

Elvis Presley died 32 years ago today, he was 42. Margaret Mitchell died 60 years ago today, at age 48. Babe Ruth died 61 years ago today, he was 53. Robert Johnson died 71 years ago today, he was 27.

The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published 55 years ago.

August 15th

… is Napoleon’s birthday. He was born August 15, 1769 (and died in 1821, at age 51). As an adult, Napoleon was just over 5-feet, 6-inches tall (1.686 m), about average for his countrymen at the time.

Four time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress (one win), Ethel Barrymore was born on this date in 1879.

Pulitzer-winning author Edna Ferber was born 121 years ago today. She’s known best for So Big (Pulitzer prize in 1924), Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant and Ice Palace.

T.E. Lawrence was born on this date in 1888. the third illegitimate son of the seventh Baronet of Westmeath. The Writer’s Almanac has a good brief bio, which includes this:

Lawrence had learned to speak and read Arabic, and when World War I began, he went to work for Britain’s intelligence agency. Then, in 1916, he decided to join the armed forces on the ground, to encourage Arab revolt against the ruling Ottoman Turks, who had allied with Germany for the war. He wore long robes and headcloths and his comrades did, and he led Arab tribes in guerilla warfare in the desert, blowing up railroad tracks to impede enemy transport. He led his Arab forces in a decoy mission to distract the Turkish army so that British forces were able to invade Palestine and Syria. At one point, Lawrence was captured, beaten, and raped by a Turkish governor.

He accompanied the Arab delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris, and then Winston Churchill appointed him the political advisor on the Middle East. He was 31 years old and famous all over the world.

TV chef Julia Child was born Julia McWilliams in Pasadena, California, on this date in 1912.

Wisecracking DIck Van Dyke Show co-star Rose Marie is 86.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 71.

Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth, is 59.

Grace, that is, actress Debra Messing, is 41.

Ben Affleck is 37.

Pro Football Hall of Fame member Gene Upshaw was born on August 15th in 1945. Upshaw played for the Raiders, 1967-1981. (Ahh, the glory years.) Upshaw had a second career as Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association. He died last August.

The Wizard of Oz premiered 70 years ago tonight.

Today is the Feast of the Assumption, the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the feast celebrates both the “happy departure of Mary from this life” and the “assumption of her body into heaven.” That she “was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” is a principle of Catholic dogma.

August 14th

Today is the birthday

… of Earl Weaver. The former Orioles manager is 79.

… of Dash Crofts. The Crofts of Seals and Crofts is 69.

… of David Crosby. The Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Nash is 68. Mama Cass introduced Crosby, Stills and Nash to one another in 1968. Before that, of course, Mr. Crosby was in another Hall of Fame group, The Byrds.

… of Steve Martin, born in Waco, Texas. He’s 64 today. (And not last Friday as incorrectly posted.)

… of Susan St. James. The wife of McMillan and Wife is 63. McMillan was played by Rock Hudson.

… of Danielle Steel. The author is 62.

… of Gary Larson. The Far Side cartoonist is 59.

… of Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Magic is 50, as is actress Marcia Gay Harden.

… of Susan Olsen. Cindy, of The Brady Bunch, is 48.

… of Halle Berry. The Academy Award winner is 43.

… of Ernest Thayer, the man who wrote “Casey at the Bat,” born on this date in 1863 (and not August 7, as incorrectly reported).

Today is the 64th anniversary of the end of World War II; V-J[apan] Day or V-P[acific] Day. That’s Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photo. The nurse has been identified as Edith Cullen Shain. She was 27 that day. No one knows who the sailor was. Click the image for a larger version.

Friday the 13th is a Thursday this month

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is 83 today.

Ben Hogan was born on this date in 1912. Hogan was the great golfer of mid-century, overcoming injuries from a severe, near-fatal auto accident. Hogan won four U.S. Opens, two Masters, two PGAs and one British Open between 1946-53.

Alfred Hitchcock was born on this date in 1899. The director was nominated for the Academy Award for best director five times, but never won. The nominations were for Rebecca, Life Boat, Spellbound, Rear Window and Psycho. CNN did a retrospective on Hitchcock on his 100th birthday and included a list of his “ten best” films.

10. “Strangers on a Train” (1951)
9. “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934, 1956)
8. “To Catch a Thief” (1955)
7. “Dial M for Murder” (1954)
6. “The 39 Steps” (1935)
5. “North by Northwest” (1959)
4. “The Birds” (1963)
3. “Psycho” (1960)
2. “Vertigo” (1958)
1. “Rear Window” (1954)

Little Sure Shot — Annie Oakley — was born on this date in 1860. Larry McMurtry’s excellent essay “Inventing the West” from the August 2000 issue of The New York Review of Books tells us about this famous performer.

Annie Oakley (Phoebe Ann Moses—or Mosey) grew up poor in rural Ohio, shot game to feed her family, shot game to sell, was pressed into a shooting contest with a touring sharpshooter named Frank Butler, beat him, married him, stayed with him for fifty years, and died three weeks before he did in 1926.

When Annie Oakley and Frank Butler offered themselves to Cody the Colonel was dubious. His fortunes were at a low ebb, and shooting acts abounded. But he gave Annie Oakley a chance. She walked out in Louisville before 17,000 people and was hired immediately. Nate Salsbury, Cody’s tight-fisted manager, who did not spend lavishly and who rarely highlighted performers, happened to watch Annie rehearse and promptly ordered seven thousand dollars’ worth of posters and billboard art.

Annie Oakley more than justified the expense. Sitting Bull, normally a taciturn fellow, saw her shoot in Minnesota and could not contain himself. Watanya cicilia, he called her, his Little Sure Shot. Small, reserved, Quakerish, she seemed to live on the lemonade Buffalo Bill dispensed free to all hands. In London she demolished protocol by shaking hands with Princess Alexandra. She shook hands with Alexandra’s husband, the Prince of Wales, too, though, like his mother the Queen, she strongly disapproved of his behavior with the ladies. In France the Parisians were glacially indifferent to buffalo, Indians, cowboys, and Cody—Annie Oakley melted them so thoroughly that she had to go through her act five times before she could escape. In Germany she likened Bismarck to a mastiff.

In 1901 she was almost killed in a train wreck. Annie claimed that it was the wreck that caused her long auburn hair to turn white overnight; skeptics said her hair turned white because she left it in hot water too long while at a spa. She continued to shoot into the 1920s. In her last years she looked rather like Nancy Astor. Will Rogers visited her not long before her death and pronounced her the perfect woman. Probably not until Billie Jean King and the rise of women’s tennis had a female outdoor performer held the attention of so many people. She became part of the “invention” that is the West by winning her way with a gun: a man’s thing, the very thing, in fact, that had won the West itself.

Annie was her nickname as a child. Oakley was a stage name. Offstage she referred to herself as Mrs. Frank Butler. Photo taken 1902 when Oakley was 42. Click image for larger version.

The Aztecs surrendered to Cortés on this date in 1521.

The 224th day of the year

If you know anything about mythology you probably learned about it first from Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867. Hamilton’s book Mythology, written after she had retired as a school head mistress, was published in 1942.

George Hamilton is 70 today.

Mark Knopfler is 60. Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.

Pete Sampras is 38.

Cantinflas, the great Mexican comedian, acrobat and musician — and bullfighter — was born on this date in 1911. His actual name was Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes. Cantinflas was Passepartout in Michael Todd’s 1956 Around the World in Eighty Days. In English-speaking countries, David Niven was billed as the star. Elsewhere Cantinflas took top billing — he was the highest paid actor in the world at the time. He saved the movie from the stiff Niven if you ask me.

The movie producer Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12th in 1881. Known for his extravaganzas (e.g., The Ten Commandments), DeMille won his only Oscar for The Greatest Show on Earth.

And it’s the birthday of Zerna Sharp, born in Hillisburg, Indiana, on this date in 1889. According to The Writer’s Almanac a few years back, Ms. Sharp is the woman who —

invented the characters Dick and Jane to help teach children how to read…Sharp’s idea was to use pictures and repetition to teach children new words. She took her idea to Dr. William S. Gray, who had been studying the way children learn to read, and he hired her to create a series of textbooks. She didn’t write the books, but she created the characters Dick, Jane, their sister Sally, their dog Spot, and their cat Puff. Each story introduced five new words, one on each page.

Terry Gene Bollea

… was born on this date 56 years ago. Who’s that, you ask?

Does 6’8″ (2.03m) help?
How about 275 pounds (124.7kg)?
Long blond hair, but balding? Fu Man Chu mustache?

Twenty-five years ago or so I saw this man in the St. Louis Airport. I had no idea who he was, but knew he had to be somebody. He was huge. His shirt was artistically slit. Twelve-year-old boys were all a-twitter.

I finally asked one of the boys, “So, who is that?”

He looked at me like I had just arrived from Mars.

“Hulk Hogan, of course!”

Alex Haley

… was born on this date in 1921. Haley was the author of two publishing phenomena — The Autobiography of Malcolm X (6 million copies) and Roots, which was not only a best-seller, but led to one of the most successful television series ever. Nearly half the people in the country watched the last episode in January 1977. Haley won a special Pulitizer for Roots, “the story of a black family from its origins in Africa through seven generations to the present day in America.”

Subsequently it bothered me to learn he plagarized sections of the book and possibly fudged some of the genealogy. Clearly, that wasn’t right. Even so, the good his work did in educating both black and white America (and I include both books) was a legacy of major proportion.

Haley, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard 1939-1959, before becoming a full-time writer, died of a heart attack in 1992. The Coast Guard has named a cutter for him.

Surely today, of all days, should be a national holiday

Leo Fender was born 100 years ago today.

“It’s safe to say there would be no such thing as rock and roll without its distinctive instrumentation. To put it another way, rock and roll as we know it could not exist without Leo Fender, inventor of the first solid-body electric guitar to be mass-produced: the Fender Broadcaster. Fender’s instruments – which also include the Stratocaster, the Precision bass (the first electric bass) and some of the music world’s most coveted amplifiers – revolutionized popular music in general and rock and roll in particular.
…

The bass-driven soul music of Motown and Stax would have been inconceivable without Fender’s handiwork.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Jimi, Clapton, Jeff Beck all used a Fender Strat.

Oh, and …

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10 in 1874. Mr. Hoover, who was the 31st President of the United States, lived until 1964. Among the presidents, only Ford, Reagan, and the first Adams have lived longer.

Born in Iowa, orphaned at nine, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was in the first class at Stanford University, graduating as a mining engineer. Hoover earned millions in mining before turning his attention to public service. He was instrumental in relief and humanitarian efforts during and after World War I. He was Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Hoover, the Republican, defeated Al Smith, the Democrat, handily in the 1928 election with 58% of the popular vote.

President at the time of the stock market crash and subsequent depression, Hoover believed that, while people should not suffer, assistance should be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. Even so, he supported some measures to aid businesses and farmers; indeed, among his party he was moderate. But he was simply not bold enough to meet the crisis. Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, 57.3% to 39.6% of the popular vote, 472-59 in the electoral vote.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bobbie Hatfield was born on this date in 1940. The Righteous Brothers — blue-eyed soul. No one believed they were white. The name had something to do with that, but it was the sound that fooled everyone. Hatfield had the higher voice; Bill Medley the lower. In the book accompanying the Phil Spector compilation, Back to Mono, songwriter Cynthia Weil recalls that:

After Phil, Barry [co-writer Barry Mann] and I finished the song, we took it over to The Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song. I remember Bobby Hatfield saying, “But what do I do while he’s singing the whole first verse?” and Phil said, “You can go directly to the bank!”

On AM radio in those days deejays didn’t like songs that lasted more than three minutes. Lovin’ Feelin’ is 3:46. On the label Spector printed 3:05. It was number one for two weeks in February 1965.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Veronica Bennett is 66 today. That’s Ronnie Spector, one-time Mrs. Phil Spector (married 1968-1974), and lead singer of The Ronettes (with her sister and cousin). Hits included Be My Baby and Walkin’ in the Rain. “I like to look the way Ronnie Spector sounds: sexy, hungry, totally trashy. I admire her tonal quality.” — Madonna, quoted at RonnieSpector.com.

Country singer, TV personality, sausage seller Jimmy Dean is 81 today.

Rosanna Arquette is 50.

Antonio Banderas is 49 today, all reported 5-feet, 8½ of him.

Angie Harmon is 37.

August 9th, let’s all go fishing

Today is the birthday

… of Bob Cousy, basketball hall-of-famer. He’s 81. Bob Cousy was a star of such stature that when a new basketball coach was hired by my high school in 1958, his claim to fame was he’d held Cousy to ten points once in college.

… of Rod Laver, tennis hall-of-famer. He’s 71.

… of Ken Norton, boxing hall-of-famer. He’s 66.

… of Sam Elliott, 65 today. Elliott just looks like a cowboy, or the image we think of when we think of cowboy. NewMexiKen liked him best as General John Buford in Gettysburg and he was good in The Contender.

… of Melanie Griffith, 52 today. No longer a working “girl.” She got an Oscar nomination for best actress for that role. Ms. Griffith’s mother is Tippi Hedren, known from the Hitchcock thriller The Birds.

… of Whitney Houston, 46.

… of Brett Hull, hockey hall-of-famer. He’s 45.

… of Deion Sanders. Sanders played for the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens and was on Super Bowl champion teams with the 49ers and Cowboys. He also played for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. Sanders is 42.

… of Robert Shaw, born on this date in 1927. Shaw was Doyle Lonegan in The Sting and Captain Quint in Jaws. He was nominated for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. A favorite of NewMexiKen is his work as Mr. Blue in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Shaw died in 1978.

And Izaak Walton was born on this date in 1593. He’s the author of many books, most famously The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653.

Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did”; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

August 8th

Today is the birthday

… of Esther Williams, 88. When the national AAU 100 meter freestyle champion found out the 1940 Olympics were cancelled because of the War, she went to Hollywood.

… of Dustin Hoffman, 72 today. Hoffman has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role seven times, winning for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. Dustin Lee Hoffman is his actual name.

… of Larry Wilcox, 62 today. That’s CHiPs officer Jon Baker.

… of Roger Federer, 28.

… of Marjorie Rawlings, born on this date in 1896. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling.

… of Emiliano Zapata, born on this date in 1879. “There have been men who, dying, have become stronger. I can think of many of them — Benito Juárez, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ — Perhaps it might be that way with me.”

Arthur J. Goldberg

… was born on this date in 1908. Goldberg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Kennedy in 1962. He subsequently made one of the great sacrifices for his country:

Three years after Goldberg took his seat on the Supreme Court, President Lyndon Johnson asked him to step down and accept an appointment as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. At first, Goldberg declined the offer, but after much prodding by Johnson, he finally accepted. Goldberg’s change of mind was prompted by his sense of duty to the country during the war in Vietnam. He said, “I thought I could persuade Johnson that we were fighting the wrong war in the wrong place, [and] to get out…. I would have loved to have stayed on the Court, but my sense of priorities was [that] this war would be disastrous” (Stebenne, 348). On July 26, 1965, Goldberg assumed the responsibilities of Ambassador to the UN.

The ambassadorship proved frustrating for Goldberg, involving many confrontations with Johnson concerning the war in Vietnam. Goldberg came to believe that he could affect American foreign policy better as a private citizen than through a governmental position, and on April 23, 1968, he resigned from the ambassadorship. He returned to the practice of law in New York City from 1968 to 1971 with the firm of Paul, Weiss, Goldberg, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison.

[Source: The Supreme Court Papers of Arthur J. Goldberg, Northwestern University School of Law]

Goldberg died in 1990. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery near his friend, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

August 7th is the birthday

… of Nathanael Greene, born on this date in 1742. Greene was a major general in the American army during the Revolutionary War and was the primary architect of American success in the south.

… of Ernest Thayer, author of the baseball poem Casey at the Bat. Thayer was born on this date in 1863, attended Harvard where he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon along with William Randolph Hearst. Hearst offered Thayer a job writing poems for the San Francisco Examiner and “Casey” was published in the Examiner in 1888.

… of Ralph Bunche, born on this date in 1904.

Like his world, Dr. Bunche was a man of many faces and talents, full of paradox and struggle. By training and temperament, he was an ideal international civil servant, a black man of learning and experience open to men and ideas of all shades.

At the United Nations, he had been a key diplomat for more than two decades since his triumphal success in negotiating the difficult 1949 armistice between the new state of Israel and the Arab states.

As the architect of the Palestine accord, he won the Nobel Peace Prize of 1950.

Source: The New York Times obituary for Bunche, 1971.

… of Gary Edward “Garrison” Keillor, born in Anoka (not Lake Wobegon), Minnesota, 67 years ago today.

… of Steve Martin, born in Waco, Texas (but grew up near Disneyland), 64 years ago today. “Well, EXCUSE me.”

… of Newman. Actor Wayne Knight is 54 today.

… of Oscar winner Charlize Theron, born in South Africa, 34 years ago today.

We love Lucy (and we could use an August holiday)

Lucille Ball was born on this date in 1911. NewMexiKen once read that Ms. Ball’s image had been seen more times by more people than that of any other person in history.

Miss Ball, noted for impeccable timing, deft pantomime and an endearing talent for making the outrageous believable, was a Hollywood legend: a contract player at RKO in the 1930′s and 40′s who later bought the studio with Desi Arnaz, her first husband.
. . .

The elastic-faced, husky-voiced comedian was a national institution from 1951 to 1974 in three series and many specials on television that centered on her ”Lucy” character. The first series, ”I Love Lucy,” was for six years the most successful comedy series on television, never ranking lower than third. The series, on CBS, chronicled the life of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban band leader played by Mr. Arnaz, who was Miss Ball’s husband on and off screen for nearly 20 years.

The New York Times

I recently saw an early Three Stooges film with Lucille Ball in a bit part.

If Lucy isn’t enough for a holiday, how about Andy Warhol? He was born Andrew Warhola on this date 81 years ago.

His father was a Czechoslovakian immigrant and a coal miner. His mother was extremely protective, and she let him spend all his time as a child drawing copies of Maybelline advertisements.

He got a job as an advertising illustrator in New York City in the 1950s, but he wanted to be a serious artist. One day, he got the idea to start painting pictures of advertisements, movie stars, and other popular images. He made silk-screened pictures of Campbell’s soup cans and sculptures of Brillo boxes, and his style became known as Pop Art.

Though he was surrounded by hard-partying rock stars and artists, he lived with his mother, and he went to a Catholic church almost every Sunday. His friends said that he never took drugs and only drank occasionally.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2008)

Or maybe one of America’s foremost historians, Richard Hofstadter, born on this date in 1916. Sam Tanenhaus, writing three years ago in a review of a Hofstadter biography:

At his death in 1970, Richard Hofstadter was probably this country’s most renowned historian, best known as the originator of the “consensus” school, whose measured siftings of the American past de-emphasized conflict — whether economic, regional or ideological — and highlighted instead the nation’s long tradition of shared ideas, principles and values.

This school had a limited shelf life, but Hofstadter’s work has outlived it, owing to the clarity and nuance of his thought and his talent for drawing parallels between disparate episodes in our national narrative, almost always bringing the argument around to the concerns of midcentury America. “I know it is risky,” he acknowledged in 1960, “but I still write history out of my engagement with the present.” The gamble, of course, was whether questions so pressing in his time would continue to engage later generations. To a remarkable extent they have, and so Hofstadter remains relevant — in some respects more relevant than ever.

M. Night Shyamalan is 39 today. David Robinson is 44.

The real moonwalk

Twelve individuals have walked on the surface of the moon.

The first of them, Neil Armstrong, is 79 today.

Today, August 5th, more than any other date, we fathom the passage of time

Marsha Brady (Maureen McCormick) is 53.

August 4th

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Debby.

1993 – Rwandian Hutu’s and Tutsi’s sign peace treaty in Arusha. [Apparently, it didn’t take.]

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues “fairly”.

1977 – President Carter establishes Department of Energy

1971 – U.S. launches 1st satellite into lunar orbit from manned spacecraft

1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo US ships Gulf of Tonkin

1956 – Elvis Presley releases “Hound Dog”

1949 – NBL and NBAA merge into National Basketball Association

1944 – Anne Frank and her family arrested in Amsterdam by Nazis

1914 – Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

1892 – Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden arrested in Fall River, Mass

1862 – U.S. government collects its 1st income tax

1855 – John Bartlett publishes “Familiar Quotations”

1821 – 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post (publishes until 1969)

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of Champagne.

Births:

1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelly, English poet and author.

1901 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)

1912 – Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat credited with saving nearly 100,000 Budapest Jews during World War II.

1920 – Helen Thomas, American journalist—Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and, in 1975, the first female member of the Gridiron Club.

1944 – Richard Belzer, American actor and comedian (Sgt. Munch)

1955 – Billy Bob Thornton, American actor and writer

1961 – Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

1962 – Roger Clemens, American baseball player

1962 – Wesley Snipes, Orlando Fla, actor (New Jack City, Passenger 57

August 3rd: Ernie Pyle’s Birthday

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy machine-gun fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

Perhaps Pyle’s most famous piece: The Death of Captain Waskow. If you’ve never read it, do so now! If you’ve read it before, read it again!

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Today is also the birthday

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 89.

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 83.

… of Martin Sheen, 69. Sheen won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown.

… of Martha Stewart, 68.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 58 each.

… of Randy Scruggs, 56.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 32.

July 31st

Other than J.K. Rowling mentioned in a previous post, there aren’t many well-known individuals born on the last day of July. Oh sure, Wesley Snipes is 47 and Geraldine Chaplin is 65. The governor of Massachusetts is 53. (Quick now, what is his name?) S.S. Kresge was born on this date in 1867. Wonder what he’d think of K-Mart today?

No, I guess we’ll just have to make today a national holiday to celebrate Nora’s birthday. Generous, gracious, attractive, intelligent, educated, accomplished. Sounds like holiday material to me (even if I am biased in favor of a daughter-in-law).

Oh, and a secret, Nora’s birthday today is a round year.

July 30th, a holiday except for Arnold dragging it down

Edd “Kookie Kookie lend me your comb” Byrnes is 76 today.

Blues guitarist Buddy Guy is 73.

Oscar nominee (direction and co-writer, The Last Picture Show) Peter Bogdanovich is 70.

Paul Anka is 68. Anka is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is 62.

Kate Bush is 51.

Oscar best actor nominee Laurence Fishburne is 48.

Lisa Kudrow is 46.

Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is 35.

The Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel was born on this date in 1890.

MANAGED NEW YORK YANKEES 1949-1960.
WON 10 PENNANTS AND 7 WORLD SERIES WITH
NEW YORK YANKEES. ONLY MANAGER TO WIN
5 CONSECUTIVE WORLD SERIES 1949-1953.
PLAYED OUTFIELD 1912-1925 WITH BROOKLYN,
PITTSBURGH, PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK AND
BOSTON N.L. TEAMS. MANAGED BROOKLYN
1934-1936, BOSTON BRAVES 1938-1943,
NEW YORK METS 1962-1965.

A few Casey-isms:

“Can’t anybody here play this game?”

“Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”

“He’d (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch.”

One of the most remarkable Americans, Henry Ford, was born on this date in 1863. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Ford’s New York Times obituary in 1947:

Renting a one-story brick shed in Detroit, Mr. Ford spent the year 1902 experimenting with two- cylinder and four-cylinder motors. By that time the public had become interested in the speed possibilities of the automobile, which was no longer regarded as a freak. To capitalize on this interest, he built two racing cars, the “999″ and the “Arrow,” each with a four-cylinder engine developing eighty horsepower. The “999,” with the celebrated Barney Oldfield at its wheel, won every race in which it was entered.

The resulting publicity helped Mr. Ford to organize the Ford Motor Company, which was capitalized at $100,000, although actually only $28,000 in stock was subscribed. From the beginning Mr. Ford held majority control of this company. In 1919 he and his son, Edsel, became its sole owners, when they bought out the minority stockholders for $70,000,000.

In 1903 the Ford Motor Company sold 1,708 two-cylinder, eight horsepower automobiles. …

With this material he began the new era of mass production. He concentrated on a single type of chassis, the celebrated Model T, and specified that “any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” On Oct. 1, 1908, he began the production of Model T, which sold for $850. The next year he sold 10,600 cars of this model. Cheap and reliable, the car had a tremendous success. In seven years he built and sold 1,000,000 Fords; by 1925 he was producing them at the rate of almost 2,000,000 a year.

He established two cardinal economic policies during this tremendous expansion: the continued cutting of the cost of the product as improved methods of production made it possible, and the payment of higher wages to his employes. By 1926 the cost of the Model T had been cut to $310, although it was vastly superior to the 1908 model. In January, 1914, he established a minimum pay rate of $5 a day for an eight-hour day, thereby creating a national sensation. Up to that time the average wage throughout his works had been $2.40 a nine-hour day.

The entire obituary is really rather fascinating reading.

Douglas Brinkley’s Wheels for the World (2003) is considered a good biography of Ford and the Ford Motor Company.

Vladimir Zworykin was born in Murom, Russia, on this date in 1889. He came to the U.S. in 1919. Zworykin’s television transmitting and receiving method using cathode ray tubes, developed in the 1920s and early 1930s, ranks him as the prime inventor of television.

July 29th ought to be a national holiday

Don Carter is 83 today.

July 28th

Jackie Kennedy would have been 80 today. She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on this date in 1929.

Bill Bradley is 66.

Sally Struthers and Georgia Engel are each 61 today.

Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, is 55. Venezuela supplies about 6% of U.S. daily oil consumption.

Catherine Howard married Henry VIII on this date in 1540. She was Mrs. VIII number five.

Maximilien Robespierre got nicked with a razor on this date in 1794. Witnesses said Robespierre died within seconds of the guillotine blade severing his head from his neck but, after viewing A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Senator Bill Frist was certain guillotine victims “respond to visual stimuli.”

Beatrix Potter was born on this date in 1866.

Beatrix Potter thought she might become a scientist, but when she wrote a paper to present to the Royal Botanic Gardens, she was turned away because only men were allowed to present. So she continued to make detailed drawings of animals and plants, and she continued to refuse the suitors her parents brought home for her, because she didn’t want to be a Victorian housewife and raise children and have no time left for her own interests.

In 1893, Potter sent an illustrated letter to the child of her former governess, and it was in that letter that Peter Rabbit made his debut. She liked creating animal characters, writing and illustrating their stories. So she decided to write children’s books, but for years publishers didn’t take her seriously.

You’ll have to read the rest at The Writer’s Almanac (2008).

An earthquake in China killed an estimated 242,000 people 33 years ago today.

July 27th — let’s make it a holiday

Today is the birthday

… of television producer Norman Lear. He’s 87. Lear brought a revolution to TV when he introduced All in the Family in 1971. Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Maude, One Day At a Time and other shows were also his.

… of Jerry Van Dyke, 78.

… of Bugs Bunny, who made his first featured appearance in a cartoon released on this date in 1940, A Wild Hare. Bugs was modeled on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar — and with a Brooklyn accent.

… of Bobbie Gentry; she is 65. No word yet on what it was she and Billy Joe threw off the Tallahatchee bridge.

… of Peggy Fleming, 61 today. Miss Fleming won her gold medal for figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics.

… of Maya Rudolph, 37.

… of A-Rod. Alex Rodriguez is 34. He’s really younger because “A-Rod years” don’t have Octobers.

Baseball manager Leo Durocher was born 104 years ago today. His Hall-of-Fame bio reads:

Leo Durocher was a good-field, no-hit shortstop for 17 years, but gained his greatest notoriety for accomplishments after his playing days. His combative and swashbuckling style, brilliant baseball mind, uncanny memory and fiery disposition became “The Lip’s” trademarks as a colorful and controversial manager for 24 seasons with the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs and Astros. He compiled 2,009 wins in 3,740 games, captured three pennants and won the World Series in 1954. He was named Manager of the Year three times by the “Sporting News.”

The truce ending the Korean War was signed on this date in 1953. Read the report from The New York Times.

The first U.S. government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs (which became the Department of State), was established on this date in 1789. State was my employer for 7½ years.

July 26th is the birthday

… of Bob Lilly. He’s 70. My god the years do go by.

… of Mick Jagger. He’s still can’t get no satisfaction, even at 66. And time isn’t really on his side so much any more, is it?

… of Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, 64.

… of Dorothy Hamill, 53. Another that makes one wonder where the years have gone. Her gold medal was at the 1976 Winter Olympics.

… of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. He’s 50. Spacey won for best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects and leading actor for American Beauty.

… of Sandra Bullock. From Arlington, Virginia, she’s 45. Ms. Bullock has been an Academy Award presenter.

Two great comediennes were born on this date — Gracie Allen in 1895, 1897 or 1902 (her birth certificate was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake) and Vivian Vance in 1909.

Because George Burns lived to be 100 and managed to stay in show business nearly until then (playing God in one film, no less), Gracie, who died in 1964 has been largely forgotten. She was the true comedic talent of the two, however. On their radio and television programs George was the straight man, Gracie had the good lines.

At the end of their show, George Burns would say, “Say goodnight, Gracie.” Urban myth has it that she said, “Good night Gracie,” but, in fact, she always just said “Goodnight.”

“Were you the oldest one in the family?” “No, no, my mother and father were much older.” — Gracie Allen

“They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it.” — Gracie Allen

“When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.” — Gracie Allen

Vivian Vance was two years older than her long-time co-star Lucille Ball, though many thought Vance to be much older because her I Love Lucy character Ethel Mertz was married to Fred, played by actor William Frawley, who was 18 years older. Miss Vance died of cancer in 1979.

Actor Jason Robards was born on this date in 1922. Robards won two best supporting actor Oscars and was nominated a third time. NewMexiKen liked Robards in A Thousand Clowns, but Martin Balsam got the acting Oscar for that fine film.

Humorist Jean Shepherd was born on this date in 1925. As they so often do, The Writer’s Almanac had a nice, succinct essay (from 2004):

It’s the birthday of humorist Jean Shepherd, born in Chicago, Illinois (1925). He’s remembered for the autobiographical stories he told on the radio about a boy named Ralph Parker growing up in Hohman, Indiana. One of his stories was made into the movie A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated. It’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, even though every adult in his life says that he’ll shoot his eye out. The stories Shepherd told on-air were always improvised, but he later wrote them down and published them in collections like In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1967) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1972).

Shepherd said, “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856), Carl Jung (1875) and Aldous Huxley (1894) were born on July 26th.

July 23rd

Daniel Radcliffe is 20 today.

At the other end of the acting spectrum, Gloria DeHaven is 84.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is 73. Kennedy, a Reagan appointment, is often the swing vote on the Court. Stevens (89), Ginsburg (76) and Scalia (73) are older; Breyer will be 71 next month.

Actor Ronny Cox is 71. Cox, a Cloudcroft, New Mexico native, is perhaps most famous as Lt. Andrew Bogomil of the Beverly Hills Police Department, but he has more than 120 credits listed at IMDB.

Don Imus is 69 today.

Woody Harrelson is 48. Harrelson was nominated for best actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt and won one Emmy for playing Woody on Cheers.

Saul Hudson is 44. He’s better known as Slash of Guns N’ Roses.

Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman is 42.

Alison Krauss is 38.

July 22nd

Bob Dole is 86 today.

Oscar-winning actress Louise Fletcher, Nurse Ratched, is 75.

Tom Robbins is 73 today.

He’s known for novels such as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), and Villa Incognito (2003). He says that when he starts a book, he has no idea of what the story will be. He never outlines and never revises. He just works on each sentence until he thinks it’s perfect, sometimes for more than an hour, and then he moves on to the next one. He said, “I’m probably more interested in sentences than anything else in life.”

The Writer’s Almanac

69. How old is Jeopardy host Alex Trebek today?

One-time supporting actor Oscar nominee Albert Brooks, Danny Glover and The Eagles Don Henley all turn 62 today

Two-time Oscar nominee for best actor Willem Dafoe, aka the Green Goblin, aka Jesus, is 54.

David Spade is 45.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on July 22nd in 1890. She lived until January 22, 1995. According to The Writer’s Almanac:

There’s a cocktail named after her and it’s popular in bars on the East Coast (order a “Rose Kennedy”). It has vodka, club soda, and a splash of cranberry juice — which gives it a “rose” color. It’s served with a wedge of lemon or lime and is especially popular at gay bars, reportedly, because it’s low in calories.