It’s the birthday

… of “Dragline.” George Kennedy is 80.

… of the woman who broke up the Beatles. She’s 72 today. In 2003 Time Asia published an informative profile of the complex artist Yoko Ono.

… of Vinnie Barbarino. He’s 51 today. So are Vincent Vega, Chili Palmer, Michael, Buford ‘Bud’ Uan Davis, Tod Lubitch, Danny Zuko and Tony Manero. And so is John Travolta.

… of the letter lady. Vanna White is 48 today.

… of Jack Palance (86), Cybill Shepherd (55), Matt Dillon (41), and Molly Ringwald (37).

Jim Brown …

was born on this date in 1936.

Brown was listed as the 4th greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN.

Brown played only nine seasons for the Cleveland Browns — and led the NFL in rushing eight times. He averaged 104 yards a game, a record 5.2 yards a pop. He ran for at least 100 yards in 58 of his 118 regular-season games (he never missed a game). He ran for 237 yards in a game twice, scored five touchdowns in another game and four times scored four touchdowns. He rushed for more than 1,000 yards in seven seasons, scorching opponents for 1,527 yards in one 12-game season and 1,863 in a 14-game season.

“For mercurial speed, airy nimbleness, and explosive violence in one package of undistilled evil, there is no other like Mr. Brown,” wrote Pulitzer Prize winning sports columnist Red Smith.

Read the entire ESPN essay on Jim Brown: Brown was hard to bring down.

I wanna be like Mike

Michael Jordan is 42 today.

It’s the birthday

… of LeVar Burton. Kunta Kinte is 48.

… of Ice-T. Det. Odafin ‘Fin’ Tutuola is 47.

… of John McEnroe. Super-Brat is 46.

Chuck Yeager …

first person to break the sound barrier, was born on this date in 1923.

Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, reportedly with two ribs broken two nights before in a drunken horseback ride. The plane, Glamorous Glennis, is hanging from the Air & Space Museum ceiling. Glennis was Mrs. Yeager.

Yeager is the basis for the character played by Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff. Glennis was played by Barbara Hershey.

In his wonderful book The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe explains that West Virginian Yeager is the reason why all airline pilots talk with a drawl — to be like Yeager, “the most righteous of all the posessors of the right stuff.”

Vialula

Actress Julie Warner is 40 today. Seems like an occasion to watch Doc Hollywood.

It’s the birthday

… of Carole King. She’s feeling the earth move under her feet at 63 today.

… of Joe Pesci. No longer a “yute,” he’s 62.

… of Alice Walker. One assumes her birthday cake is the color purple as she turns 61 today.

… of Mia Farrow. The former Mrs. André Previn, Mrs. Frank Sinatra and significant other of Woody Allen is 60.

James Dean …

was born on this date in 1931. Here’s what I posted a year ago.

It’s the birthday

… of Ted Koppel. Alfred E. Newman’s brother is 65.

… of Nick Nolte. Twice nominated for the best acting Oscar, he’s 64.

… of Mary Steenburgen. The Oscar-winning actress is 52.

… of John Grisham. The attorney turned best-selling author is 50.

… of Gary Coleman. Arnold is 37.

It’s the birthday of …

Aaron Burr (1756)
Babe Ruth (1895)
Ronald Reagan (1911)
Eva Braun (1912)
Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917)
Mike Farrell (1939)
Tom Brokaw (1940)
Fabian (1943)
Bob Marley (1945)

It’s the birthday

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear NewMexiKen
Happy birthday to me

It’s also the birthday

… of Byron Nelson. The hall-of-fame golfer is 93.

… of Miss Rosa Parks. The soul of the civil rights movement is 91.

… of Betty Friedan. The feminist leader is 84.

… of Conrad Bain. The actor (Maude, Diff’rent Strokes) is 82.

… of John Steel. The Animals drummer (and therefore Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee) is 64.

… of David Brenner. The comedian is 60. Good day. Good age.

… of Dan Quayle. The former VP is 58.

… of Alice Cooper. The rocker is 57.

… of Clint Black. The country music star is 43.
Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory,
Take you to another place and time,
Completely change your state of mind.

Charles Lindbergh was born on this date in 1902.

Norman Rockwell …

was born New York City on this date in 1894.

Visit the Norman Rockwell Museum.

It’s the birthday

… of Tom Smothers. He’s 68.

… of Graham Nash. The Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash (or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) is 63.

… of Farrah Fawcett. Charlie’s Angel is 58.

… of Christie Brinkley. She’s 51.

It’s the birthday

… of Gene Hackman. The Oscar-winning actor is 75. He won Best Actor for The French Connection and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Unforgiven. He has received three other nominations.

… of Dick Cheney. The Vice President is 64.

… of Phil Collins. The singer is 54.

It’s the birthday

… of Katharine Ross. Mrs. Robinson’s daughter is (gasp!) 65. (Mrs. Robinson, Anne Bancroft, turned 73 last September.)

… of Tom Selleck. Thomas Magnum is 60.

… of Oprah Winfrey. She’s 51.

… of Judy Norton Taylor. Mary Ellen Walton is 47. (Which makes her older than Patricia Neal was when playing the mother in the original Walton film, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.)

William Claude Dukenfield …

better known as W.C. Fields, was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1880 or 1889.

A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake–which I also keep handy.

I never vote for anyone; I always vote against.

Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.

Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there’s nothing exactly like it.

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.

(When “caught” reading a Bible) “Just looking for loopholes.”

Fields died on Christmas Day, 1946.

It’s the birthday

… of Alan Alda. Hawkeye is 69 today, just three days after being nominated for his first Oscar for his portrayal of Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster in The Aviator.

Jules Feiffer

From The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of cartoonist, novelist and playwright Jules Feiffer, born in the Bronx (1929). He said of his childhood, “The only thing I wanted to be was grown up. Because I was a terrible flop as a child. You cannot be a successful boy in America if you cannot throw or catch a ball.” He decided early on that he wanted to be a comic strip artist, and when he was a teenager, he showed his work to the cartoonist Will Eisner, and Eisner gave him a job. Feiffer said, “[It was] ten dollars a week part-time—erasing pages, filling in blanks, and dreaming great dreams.”

But he was drafted in 1951, and he did not take well to the army. He said, “I was treated with open contempt by one form of authority or the other in the army on a 24-hour basis.” The experience inspired him to write a bitterly cynical cartoon strip about a four-year-old boy who is drafted by mistake. He tried to sell the strip to a variety of major newspapers, but nobody would buy it. So he finally turned to a new weekly newspaper in his neighborhood called The Village Voice. Over the next decade, the Village Voice became nationally prominent, and Feiffer’s cartoons became nationally syndicated.

His strip in the Village Voice was one of the first cartoon strips to deal with adult themes such as sex, politics, and psychiatry. For most of his career, he has drawn and written all of his work in Central Park, which he considers his office.

Paul Newman …

is 80 years old today.

Newman has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar eight times, winning for The Color of Money in 1986, but not for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Absence of Malice, The Verdict, or Nobody’s Fool. He was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actor for Road to Perdition (at age 78).

It’s the birthday

… of Mariska Hargitay. Jayne Mansfield’s daughter is 41. (Mariska was in the car when her mother was killed in 1967.) Ms. Hargitay plays Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

It’s the birthday

… of Jean Stapleton. Edith Bunker is 82.

… of Tippi Hedren. The actress in The Birds is 75. As it’s her birthday NewMexiKen won’t say how bad she was in that role.

… of Phil Everly. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with older brother Don) is 66.

… of Shelley Fabares. Donna Reed’s television daughter is 61.

… of Desi Arnaz Jr. Little Ricky is 52.

… of Katey Sagal. The Married…With Children mom is 48.

… of Drea de Matteo. The actress who was whacked on The Sopranos last season is 32.

Paul Cezanne was born on this date in 1839.

It’s the birthday

… of Kevin Costner. Costner won the Oscars for Diretor and Best Picture for Dances With Wolves and was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Lt. John Dunbar. He’s 50 today.

It’s also the birthday of Cary Grant (Archibald Alexander Leach, 1904-1986) and Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminski, 1913-1987).

It’s the birthday

… of Bart Starr. The hall-of-fame quarterback is 71.

… of Bob Denver. Gilligan (and Maynard Krebs) is 70.

… of Dick Enberg. The sportscaster is 70 (oh, my!).

… of Joan Baez. The singer is 64.

… of Jimmy Page. The Led Zeppelin rocker is 61.

… of Crystal Gayle. Loretta Lynn’s little sister is 54.

… of Dave Matthews. He’s 38.

It’s also the birthday

… of Stephen Hawking. The physicist and author is 63.

… of newscasters Sander Vanocur (77) and Charles Osgood (72).

… of Shirley Bassey. The singer of “Goldfinger” is 68.

… of Bob Eubanks. “The Newlywed Game” emcee is 67.

Soupy Sales …

was born on this date in 1926.

Soupy prospered as a Detroit and then ABC television comedian in the 50s and 60s. NewMexiKen remembers Soupy for the noontime Lunch with Soupy Sales on WXYZ-TV, along with White Fang and Black Tooth, Pookie the Worm, and the Soupy Shuffle. Great stuff.