It’s the birthday

… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 83.

… of Diahann Carroll. The actress is 70. She was once married to singer Vic Damone and once engaged to Sidney Poitier and later to David Frost. Ms. Carroll was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Claudine. Her TV sitcom “Julia” was the first to star an African-American woman.

… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 55. A great book.

… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official second daughter of NewMexiKen, is 33.

… of Kate Winslett. The actress is 30. She’s been nominated for the best actress and best supporting actress Oscar twice each.

… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on this date in 1902.

But by 1941, “I felt it was time I was on my own,” Mr. Kroc once recalled, and he became the exclusive sales agent for a machine that could prepare five milkshakes at a time.

Then, in 1954, Mr. Kroc heard about Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a fast-food emporium in San Bernadino, Calif., that was using several of his mixers. As a milkshake specialist, Mr. Kroc later explained, “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 at one time.”

…

Mr. Kroc talked to the McDonald brothers about opening franchise outlets patterned on their restaurant, which sold hamburgers for 15 cents, french fries for 10 cents and milkshakes for 20 cents.

Eventually, the McDonalds and Mr. Kroc worked out a deal whereby he was to give them a small percentage of the gross of his operation. In due course the first of Mr. Kroc’s restaurants was opened in Des Plaines, another Chicago suburb, long famous as the site of an annual Methodist encampment.

Business proved excellent, and Mr. Kroc soon set about opening other restaurants. The second and third, both in California, opened later in 1955; in five years there were 228, and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers.

Source: Kroc obituary in 1984 from The New York Times

And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother; she would have been 80 today. In the month before she died in 1974, Mom made some cuttings of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Those cuttings (and their descendants) still grow in NewMexiKen’s living room more than 31 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.

It’s the birthday

… of Charlton Heston. Moses is 81 today. Heston won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.

… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 59 today.

It’s also the birthday of Buster Keaton, born on this date in 1895.

Buster Keaton is considered one of the greatest comic actors of all time. His influence on physical comedy is rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin. Like many of the great actors of the silent era, Keaton’s work was cast into near obscurity for many years. Only toward the end of his life was there a renewed interest in his films. An acrobatically skillful and psychologically insightful actor, Keaton made dozens of short films and fourteen major silent features, attesting to one of the most talented and innovative artists of his time. …

It was this “stone face,” however, that came to represent a sense of optimism and everlasting inquisitiveness.

In films such as THE NAVIGATOR (1924), THE GENERAL (1926), AND THE CAMERAMAN (1928), Keaton portrayed characters whose physical abilities seemed completely contingent on their surroundings. Considered one of the greatest acrobatic actors, Keaton could step on or off a moving train with the smoothness of getting out of bed. Often at odds with the physical world, his ability to naively adapt brought a melancholy sweetness to the films.

Source: American Masters | PBS

And it’s the birthday of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th President of the United States. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on this date in 1822.

As the Library of Congress tells it:

Rutherford B. Hayes became…president in 1877 after a bitterly-contested election against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but disputed electoral ballots from four states prompted Congress to create a special electoral commission to decide the election’s result. The fifteen-man commission of congressmen and Supreme Court justices, eight of whom were Republicans, voted along party lines deciding the election in Hayes’s favor.

It’s the birthday

… of James Whitmore. The actor, twice nominated for an Oscar, is 83. He was the sole cast member of Give ‘em Hell, Harry!.

… of Jimmy Carter. The 39th President is 81 today.

… of Tom Bosley. Richie Cunningham’s father is 78.

… of Julie Andrews. Mary Poppins is 70. Ms. Andrews won the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins; she was nominated for The Sound of Music and Victor/Victoria. Of course, her claim to fame really was as Eliza Doolittle in the stage version of My Fair Lady.

… of Rod Carew. The baseball hall of fame player is 60.

… of Tim O’Brien. The novelist is 59. O’Brien is the author of Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979 National Book Award in fiction, and The Things They Carried, which was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of 1990, received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award in fiction, and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the Lake of the Woods was named by Time as the best novel of 1994. The book also received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was selected as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.

Chief Justive William Rehnquist would have been 81 today.

It’s the birthday

… of Deborah Kerr. The six-time Oscar nominee for Best Actress is 84 today.

… of Angie Dickinson. “Pepper” is 74 today.

… of Johnny Mathis. Chances are the singer is 70 today.

… of Barry Williams. Greg Brady is 51 today.

James Dean was killed on this date 50 years ago at the junction of California Highways 41 and 46.

[Dean] and his mechanic, Rolf Wuetherich, were traveling in Dean’s new Porsche Spyder 550, which he planned to race that afternoon in Salinas. Dean had traded in his Porsche Speedster just nine days earlier, purchasing the Spyder for $6,900 and naming it “Little Bastard.”

From JamesDean.com.

Truman Capote was born in New Orleans on this date in 1924. The Writer’s Almanac had more on Capote last year than this.

Probably not quite as much shakin’ goin’ on

Jerry Lee Lewis is 70 today.

Ian McShane is 63. Big party at the Gem. (McShane plays the c***s**k** Al Swearengen on Deadwood.)

Bryant Gumbel is 57.

Gene Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on this date in 1907. The following is from the biography at the Official Website for Gene Autry:

Discovered by humorist Will Rogers, in 1929 Autry was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gained a popular following, a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929, and soon after, performed on the “National Barn Dance” for radio station WLS in Chicago. Autry first appeared on screen in 1934 and up to 1953 popularized the musical Western and starred in 93 feature films. In 1940 theater exhibitors of America voted Autry the fourth biggest box office attraction, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy.

Autry made 635 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold [That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine]. His Christmas and children’s records Here Comes Santa Claus and Peter Cottontail are among his platinum recordings. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the second all-time best selling Christmas single, boasts in excess of 30 million in sales.

… Autry’s great love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels in 1961. Active in Major League Baseball, Autry held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death [1998].

… Autry is the only entertainer to have five stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, one each for radio, records, movies, television, and live performance including rodeo and theater appearances.

Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show aired from 1940 to 1956. His television program from 1950 through 1955 (91 episodes), and long after in syndication.

It’s the birthday of …

Sam Adams

Samuel Adams Beers are named for Sam Adams the brewer of beer and revolution, who was born on this date in 1722.

Adams’s contributions to the independence movement were many and varied. During the 1760s and 1770s he frequently wrote polemical articles for the Boston newspapers, and he recruited talented younger men—Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, and his second cousin John Adams, among others—into the Patriot cause. It was Samuel Adams who conceived of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and took a leading role in its formation and operations from 1772 through 1774. He was among those who planned and coordinated Boston’s resistance to the Tea Act, which climaxed in the famous Tea Party, and he later worked for the creation of the Continental Congress, helping propel it into supporting Massachusetts in the crisis.

Source: Reader’s Companion to American History

Adams was one of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

It’s the birthday of

… Wilford Brimley. He’s 71 today. Wilford, you’ve got to cut out the old man commercials. I thought you were at least 10 years older. (Brimley was 53-54 when he played the old guy in Cocoon.)

… Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s 33. Sigh.

… Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt. He’s 56. NewMexiKen had to admire Schmidt when, during a recent interview, he said he “would have” used steroids if they were around when he played. Whatever it took.

Wrong, but refreshing candor.

NewMexiKen was actually at a Phillies game circa 1982 or 83 where Schmidt struck out four times on 12 pitches. Then, after we left, he hit the game winning home run.

It’s the birthday

… of Michael Douglas. He’s 61.

… of Mrs. Douglas. Catherine Zeta-Jones is 36.

… of Will Smith. The Prince is 37.

… of Mark Hamill. Luke is 54.

… of Barbara Walters. She’s 74.

The Shakespeare of sportswriters was born on this date 100 years ago. That’s Red Smith. Here he is on the 1951 World Series (after the Giants’ miraculous playoff win to be there):

Magic and sorcery and incantation and spells had taken the Giants to the championship of the National League and put them into the World Series … But you don’t beat the Yankees with a witch’s broomstick. Not the Yankees, when there’s hard money to be won.

On DiMaggio:

Sometimes a fellow gets a little tired of writing about DiMaggio; a fellow thinks, “there must be some other ball player in the world worth mentioning.” But there isn’t really, not worth mentioning in the same breath with Joe DiMaggio.

It’s the birthday

… of Jim Henson. The creator of the Muppets was born on this date in 1936.

… of Jim McKay. The Wide World of Sports host is 84.

… of “Mean” Joe Greene. The Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle is 59.

… of Joseph Kennedy II. Robert Kennedy’s son, the former congressman, is 53.

Why isn’t today a holiday?

It’s the birthday of John Coltrane (1926) and Ray Charles (1930) and Bruce Springsteen (1949).

It’s the birthday

… of Tommy Lasorda. The former Dodgers manager is 78 today.

… of Lute Olson. The University of Arizona’s Hall-of-Fame basketball coach is 71.

… of semi-famous daughters of very famous fathers. Shari Belafonte is 51. Debby Boone is 49.

… of Joan Jett. The rocker is 47. Hey Joan, send me a digital copy of I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll.

… of Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima. The Brazilian football star is 29.

And it’s also the birthday of John, official youngest brother of NewMexiKen. John is a multi-talented guy — photography (as you can see), black belt, racing cyclist, actor and world traveler.

It’s the birthday

Bill Murray is 55 today. Nominated for an Oscar for Lost in Translation, NewMexiKen still thinks Murray’s best effort was as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.

Stephen King is 58. The Writer’s Almanac tells us about King:

It’s the birthday of the novelist Stephen King, born in Portland, Maine (1947). His father was a merchant seaman who left the family when Stephen was just two. He has no memories of his father, but one day he found a whole box full of his father’s science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, and that box of his father’s books inspired him to start writing horror stories.

He studied creative writing in college. He tried to write some literary stories, but he found that writing about giant man-eating rats was a lot more fun. He worked at a gas station after college and at a laundromat. His wife worked at Dunkin’ Donuts. He did his writing in the furnace room of his trailer home. He did the first drafts typed single-spaced and no margins to save paper.

He was working as a teacher when he wrote his first novel about a weird high school girl with psychic powers named Carrie White. He gave up on the book at one point and threw it in the trash. His wife rescued it. Carrie was published in 1973. The hard cover didn’t sell well, but then his agent called to say that the paperback rights had sold for $400,000.

Happy, happy birthday, baby

Bill Medley is 65 today. Medley is the Righteous Brother with the deep voice. It was he who sang the opening verse in the great, great classic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” It was the late Bobby Hatfield, the tenor , who generally took the lead on Righteous Brother songs. Cynthia Weil, who wrote “Lovin’ Feelin’,” told this story:

After Phil [Spector], 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!???

Hall of Fame ballplayers Duke Snider and Joe Morgan were born on this date — Snider is 79, Morgan 62. When I think of Morgan I think of an interview during a World Series in the early 1970s. Howard Cossell asked Morgan, “What does it feel like to know you are the best person in the world at what you do?”

Roger Angell, the wonderful writer known foremost for his essays on baseball in The New Yorker, is 85 today.

Actor Adam West, TV’s Batman, is 75. David McCallum, TV’s Illya Kuryakin, is 72.

And the Mary Tyler Show debuted on this date 35 years ago.

It’s the birthday

James Gandolfini is 44 today. Big party at the Bada Bing.

Actor Jack Warden is 85. Warden was nominated twice for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar — for Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait. NewMexiKen liked him best as juror # 7 in 12 Angry Men.

Frankie Avalon is 65. (Annette will be 63 next month.)

And C.J. Sanders, the kid who played the young Ray (Charles) Robinson, is 9.

Hey, Good Lookin’

Hiram Williams was born on this date 82 years ago. We know him as Hank.

Hank Williams’s legend has long overtaken the rather frail and painfully introverted man who spawned it. Almost singlehandedly, Williams set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft, but his appeal rests as much in the myth that even now surrounds his short life. His is the standard by which success is measured in country music on every level, even self-destruction.

— Country Music Hall of Fame

The Country Music Hall of Fame goes on to tell us:

The peak years of Hank Williams’s career were 1950 and 1951. He was one of the most successful touring acts in country music. Every one of his records charted, except for those issued as Luke the Drifter and his religious duets with Audrey. His songs, which had matured greatly since the demos he had submitted to Molly O’Day, began finding a wider market than his own recordings of them ever could. Starting with “Honky Tonkin’” in 1949, his songs had been covered for the pop market, but it was not until Tony Bennett covered “Cold, Cold Heart” in 1951 that he began to be recognized as an important popular songwriter. From that point, there was a rush to reinterpret his songs for the pop market. Guy Mitchell, for instance, had a hit with “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You”), and the duo of Frankie Laine and Jo Stafford took “Hey, Good Lookin’” into the pop Top Ten.

And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where Williams is also and inductee, says:

The words and music of Hank Williams echo across the decades with a timelessness that transcends genre. He brought country music into the modern era, and his influence spilled over into the folk and rock arenas as well. Artists ranging from Gram Parsons and John Fogerty (who recorded an entire album of Williams’ songs after leaving Creedence Clearwater Revival) to the Georgia Satellites and Uncle Tupelo have adapted elements of Williams’ persona, especially the aura of emotional forthrightness and bruised idealism communicated in his songs. Some of Williams’ more upbeat country and blues-flavored numbers, on the other hand, anticipated the playful abandon of rockabilly.

Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac. He was found and declared dead on New Year’s Day 1953. He was 29.

Riley B. King

… is 80 today. Should be a national holiday if you ask me.

King released an album Tuesday. It’s title, as you can see — “80.”

Many more B.B., many more.

It’s the birthday

… of Tommy Lee Jones. He’s 59. Jones has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor twice, winning for The Fugitive, but not for JFK.

… of Oliver Stone, also 59. Stone has been nominated for seven Oscars and won three — he won for writing for Midnight Express and for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

And of Jackie Cooper; he’s 83. Cooper’s first appearance in film was in 1929; his last 60 years later. He played Perry White in the Superman films but his real fame was as a child actor, most notably Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934). He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for Skippy in 1931. This is the role where the director got him to cry on camera by telling Jackie (falsely) that his dog had just been run over by a car.

Good Humor Man

It’s the birthday of the humorist Robert Benchley, born in Worcester, Massachusetts (1889). He started writing humor as a kid in school. Assigned to write an essay about how to do something practical, he wrote one called “How to Embalm a Corpse.” When he was assigned to write about the dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights from the point of view of the United States and Canada, he instead chose to write from the point of view of the fish.

The Writer’s Almanac

Grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.

William Howard Taft

Both president of the United States and chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio. …

In 1900, President William McKinely appointed Taft chair of a commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines which had been ceded to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War. From 1901 to 1904 Taft served successfully as the first civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt named Taft secretary of war.

After serving nearly two full terms, popular Teddy Roosevelt refused to run in 1908. Instead, he promoted Taft as the next Republican president. With Roosevelt’s help, Taft handily defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with dissent from more liberal members of the Republican party, many of whom continued to follow the lead of former President Roosevelt.

Progressive Republicans openly challenged Taft in the Congressional elections of 1910 and in the Republican presidential primaries of 1912. When Taft won the Republican nomination, the Progressives organized a rival party and selected Theodore Roosevelt to run against Taft in the general election. Roosevelt’s Bull Moose candidacy split the Republican vote and helped elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

From 1921 until 1930, Taft served his country as chief justice of the Supreme Court. In an effort to make the Court work more efficiently, he advocated passage of the 1925 Judges Act enabling the Supreme Court to give precedence to cases of national importance.

Library of Congress

It’s the birthday

… of Margaret Sanger, born on this date in 1879. From her obituary in The New York Times (1966):

As the originator of the phrase “birth control” and its best-known advocate, Margaret Sanger survived Federal indictments, a brief jail term, numerous lawsuits, hundreds of street-corner rallies and raids on her clinics to live to see much of the world accept her view that family planning is a basic human right.

The dynamic, titian-haired woman whose Irish ancestry also endowed her with unfailing charm and persuasive wit was first and foremost a feminist. She sought to create equality between the sexes by freeing women from what she saw as sexual servitude.

… of Hal Wallis, born on this date in 1899. A producer, Wallis was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar 15 times, winning for Casablanca in 1942. Wallis died in 1986.

… of Sam Neill, born in Northern Ireland on this date in 1947. Neill has appeared in numerous films, most famously The Hunt for Red October, Jurassic Park and as the ass-of-a-husband in The Piano.

It’s the birthday

… of Milton S. Hershey, born on this date in 1857. Hershey, who only completed the fourth grade, developed a formula for milk chocolate that made what had been a luxury product into the first nationally marketed candy.

… of Bill Monroe, born on this date in 1911. The Father of Bluegrass Music was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970. In 1993, Monroe was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, an honor that placed him in the company of Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Paul McCartney,

… of Mel Torme, born on this date in 1925. The “Velvet Fog” was a wonderful jazz singer, but his greatest legacy is “The Christmas Song” — “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”.

… of Sherwood Anderson, born on this date in 1876 in Camden, Ohio.

[Anderson] is best known for his short stories, “brooding Midwest tales” which reveal “their author’s sympathetic insight into the thwarted lives of ordinary people.” Between World War I and World War II, Anderson helped to break down formulaic approaches to writing, influencing a subsequent generation of writers, most notably Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Anderson, who lived in New Orleans for a brief time, befriended Faulkner there in 1924 and encouraged him to write about his home county in Mississippi.

— From the Library of Congress, which has more on Anderson.

H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken

… essayist and editor, was born on this date in 1880. Some Mencken quotes:

• The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with…
• It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
• Courtroom—A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds in favor of Judas.
• It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
• The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman.
• The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
• Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
• It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
• Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
• Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
• Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
• In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

William Sydney Porter …

was born on this date in 1852. We know him as O. Henry.

NewMexiKen posted O. Henry’s most famous story, The Gift of the Magi, in its entirety Christmas before last.

Another particular favorite is The Ransom of Red Chief.

It’s the birthday

… of Arnold Palmer. Arnie is 76 today.

… of Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Bob Lanier. He’s 57.

… of future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Randy Johnson. He’s 42.

And it’s the birthday of Roger Maris, born on this date in 1934. The following is from The Official Roger Maris Web Site:

Roger and teammate Mickey Mantle entertained baseball fans throughout the summer of ’61 as the two New York Yankee sluggers chased the record many called the most cherished in all of sports. Mickey dropped out of the home run race early due to an illness, but finished with a career high 54 home runs. Roger tied Ruth on September 26, hitting his 60th home run. He then hit his 61st home run on the final day of the season, October 1, 1961, against the Boston Red Sox to set a new record. The Yankees won the game, 1 to 0, and later went on to win the World Series.

Roger was voted the Most Valuable Player in the American league for the second straight year, as he led the league in home runs and RBI’s. He was also named the 1961 Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year.

During his career, Roger Maris played in seven World Series and seven All-Star games. He hit 275 career home runs and won the Gold Glove Award for outstanding defensive play. The New York Yankees retired his number “9″ in 1984.