Feb 17

Today is the birthday

… of Jim Brown, 74. Brown was listed as the 4th greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN. (Which makes him the second greatest athlete born on this date.)

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.

… of Michael Jordan, 47 today.

Jordan was the ranked the top athlete of the 20th century by ESPN. Here’s what they had to say: Michael Jordan transcends hoops.

“What has made Michael Jordan the First Celebrity of the World is not merely his athletic talent,” Sports Illustrated wrote, “but also a unique confluence of artistry, dignity and history.”

… of Oscar-nominee Hal Holbrook, 85. Here he is as Mark Twain in 1967.

… of Rene Russo, 56.

… of Lou Diamond Phillips, 48.

… of Paris Hilton, 29 today. She’s a walking argument for keeping the inheritance tax.

H.L. Hunt was born on this date in 1889. Hunt was a Texas oil tycoon who, among other things, fathered 14 children with three women, including two that he was married to simultaneously.

Lamar Hunt, one of those 14, was one of the founders of the American Football League and owner of the Dallas Texans (who became the Kansas City Chiefs).

[Lamar] Hunt may not have looked it, but he had a lot of money. His father, the legendary H.L. Hunt, had a fortune estimated at $600 million, which may not seem all that impressive in today’s era of billionaires but made him one of the nation’s richest men at the time.

It was the elder Hunt who came up with the best-remembered quote from the AFL era. After his son reportedly lost $1 million in his first season, H.L. was asked how long Lamar could keep doing that. According to various reports, he said Lamar would go broke in about 150 years if he kept it up.

And it was on February 17, 1801, that Thomas Jefferson was elected president and not Aaron Burr.

Republican Jefferson defeated Federalist John Adams by a margin of 73 to 65 electoral votes. When presidential electors cast their votes, however, they failed to distinguish between the office of president and vice president on their ballots. Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr each received 73 votes. With the votes tied, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. There, each state voted as a unit to decide the election.

Still dominated by Federalists, the sitting Congress loathed to vote for Jefferson—their partisan nemesis. For six days, Jefferson and Burr essentially ran against each other in the House. Votes were tallied over thirty times, yet neither man captured the necessary majority of nine states. Eventually, a small group of Federalists, led by James A. Bayard of Delaware, reasoned that a peaceful transfer of power required the majority choose the President, and a deal was struck in Jefferson’s favor.

Library of Congress: Today in History

Pulitizer-winner Edward J. Larson has a recent book on the subject — A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign.

February 16th

Today is the birthday

… of Richard Ford. The Pulitzer-winning novelist is 66.

Richard Ford writes out almost everything in longhand, with a Bic pen. Before he started to write The Lay of the Land, he spent six months filling a three-ring binder with notes, placing his notes in sections marked “realty” or “Frank” or “New Jersey.” And he keeps all his notes and manuscripts in the freezer, so that if the house burns down, he might not lose all his work.

Above excerpted from longer piece at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.

… of LeVar Burton. Kunta Kinte is 53.

… of Ice-T. Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is 52. His real name is Tracy Marrow and his son is Tracy Marrow Jr., not Ice-T Jr.

… of John McEnroe. The tennis hall-of-famer is 51.

… of Jerome Bettis. “The Bus” is 38.

Edgar Bergen was born on this date in 1903.

Born in Decatur, Michigan in 1903, Edgar Bergen developed a talent for ventriloquism at a young age. When Bergen asked a local carpenter to create a dummy, the wisecracking Charlie McCarthy was born. The duo began their career as talent show headliners, performing in Chicago while Bergen attended Northwestern University. Bergen eventually left Northwestern to concentrate on performing, but Charlie received an honorary degree from the school in 1938, a “Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comebacks.”

Bergen and McCarthy made their radio debut on Rudy Vallee’s Royal Gelatin Hour in 1936 and were an instant success. In 1937, they were given their own show for Chase & Sanborn. Almost immediately, The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show became one of radio’s highest-rated programs, a distinction it enjoyed until it left the air in 1956.

During the show’s two decades on the air, Bergen added new characters to the show, including the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry spinster Effie Klinker. Today, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd and Effie Klinker are on permanent display at the Radio Hall of Fame.

Edgar Bergen died on October 1, 1978. He is, of course, the father of actress Candice Bergen.

Radio Hall of Fame

Henry Adams was born on this date in 1838. Adams was the son of Charles Francis Adams (Lincoln’s ambassador to Great Britain), grandson of John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of John Adams. After serving as his father’s secretary in England, Henry decided on a life as a journalist and historian, writing histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations but being best known perhaps for his autobiographical The Education of Henry Adams (1907), which won a Pulitzer Prize and remains highly regarded. Adams died in 1918.

February 15th

Today is the birthday

… of actor Allan Arbus. Major Sidney Friedman of M*A*S*H is 92.

… of Melissa Manchester. She’s 59.

… of Jane Seymour. Dr. Quinn, Jewelry Woman, is an open-hearted 59.

… of Matt Groening. He’s 56.

It’s the birthday of cartoonist Matt Groening, . . . born in Portland, Oregon (1954). He decided to move to Los Angel[e]s after college to try to make it as a writer. He lived in a neighborhood full of drug dealers and thieves, and got a job ghostwriting the memoirs of an 88-year-old filmmaker. After that, he worked at a convalescent home, a waste treatment plant, and a graveyard.

He started writing a comic strip based on his daily troubles called “Life in Hell.” When a television producer asked Groening to create a TV show, Groening decided to invent a cartoon family that would be the exact opposite of all the fictional families that had ever been on American television. He named the parents after his own parents, Homer and Marge, and he named the two sisters after his own sisters, Lisa and Maggie. He chose the name Bart for the only son because it was an anagram of the word “brat.”

Critics immediately praised The Simpsons, because it was in some ways more realistic than any other American sitcom. Homer was fat, bald, and stupid; he drank a lot, worked at a nuclear power plant, and occasionally strangled his son. His wife, Marge, was an obsessive-compulsive housewife with a blue beehive hairdo. The characters were frequently selfish, rude, and mean to one another, and the show often took on dark subjects like suicide, adultery, and environmental disaster. The Simpsons went on to become the most popular and longest-running sitcom in America.

Matt Groening said, “Teachers, principals, clergymen, politicians — for the Simpsons, they’re all goofballs, and I think that’s a great message for kids.

The Writers Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

Harold Arlen was born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York, on this date in 1905. A short list from the more than 400 tunes written by Harold Arlen:

• Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive
• Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
• Come Rain Or Come Shine
• Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead
• Hooray For Love
• It’s Only A Paper Moon
• I’ve Got the World on A String
• One For My Baby
• Over The Rainbow
• Stormy Weather
• That Old Black Magic

Arlen worked with many lyricists through the years, most notably Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer and even Truman Capote. Harburg, for example, wrote the lyrics for the Wizard of Oz songs. Though it’s the lyrics we most remember, it’s the melody that makes a song memorable. That was Arlen.

John Barrymore, Drew’s grandpa, was born on this date in 1882. John is the sibling of Lionel and Ethel Barrymore. Considered the greatest American Shakespearean actor of his time, John Barrymore’s later career was hampered (and shortened) by alcoholism.

“There are lots of methods. Mine involves a lot of talent, a glass and some cracked ice.”

Susan B. Anthony was born on this date in 1820. As The New York Times said in her obituary in 1906, “Susan Brownell Anthony was a pioneer leader of the cause of woman suffrage, and her energy was tireless in working for what she considered to be the best interests of womankind.”

The domain youtube.com was registered five years ago today.

Valentine Babies

Hugh Downs is 89. Downs was the host of The Today Show from 1962-1971; before that he was Jack Paar’s sidekick on The Tonight Show from 1957-1962. He also hosted the NBC daytime quiz show Concentration from 1958-1969. That’s right, at one point he was doing all three. And even before all that he was the announcer for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, one of television’s earliest hits beginning on NBC in 1949. And many other shows.

The Bradys’ mom and stepmom, Florence Henderson, is 76.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 68.

Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein is 66.

Magician-comedian Teller is 62. Raymond Joseph Teller was his given name, but Teller is now in fact his legal name. He is one of just a few Americans with one name on his passport (according to Wikipedia).

Michael Doucet of Beausoleil is 59.

Meg Tilly is 50.

Jack Benny was born as Benjamin Kubelsky on this date in 1894. In The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, the entry for The Jack Benny Program on radio runs for eight pages. And then he was on television. Truly one of the great stars of the mid-20th century. NewMexiKen realizes how corny the jokes and skits would sound now — how corny they undoubtedly were then — but tucked among my fond memories is being at my Great Grandmother’s house in Rensselaer, New York, nearly 60 years ago. I was sick, so stayed home with Gram that Sunday evening while the rest of the family socialized. She had to be in her seventies; I no more than five or six. We listened to The Jack Benny Program on radio. And all I can remember is how hard we laughed.

Oregon entered the union as the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.

Arizona entered the union as the 48th state on February 14, 1912.

2-9-10

Today is the birthday

… of Roger Mudd, 82.

… of Nobel Prize-winner J.M. Coetzee. He’s 70.

… of Carole King. Tonight You’re Mine Completely, You Give Your Love So Sweetly — at 68.

… of Joe Pesci. Tommy DeVito is no longer a “yute,” he’s 67.

… of Barbara Lewis. Baby I’m Yours and I’ll be Yours Until the Stars Fall from the Sky — or until she’s 66.

… of Alice Walker. One assumes her birthday cake is The Color Purple as she turns 66 today.

… of Mia Farrow. The former Mrs. André Previn, Mrs. Frank Sinatra and significant other of Woody Allen is 65.

… of Senator Jim Webb, 64.

… of Travis Tritt. He’s 47. Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares).

… of Julie Warner. Vialula is 45 today.

Bill Veeck ,the man who brought a dwarf (Eddie Gaedel) to bat in the major leagues, was born on this date in 1914. Veeck was owner of three different major league franchises (Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox) and created many of the publicity innovations we take for granted today. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. As told in the first chapter of Veeck’s autobiography, Veeck as in Wreck: “When Eddie went into that crouch, his strike zone was just about visible to the naked eye. I picked up a ruler and measured it for posterity. It was 1-1/2 inches. Marvelous.”

Samuel J. Tilden was born on this date in 1814. Along with Andrew Jackson in 1824 and Albert Gore in 2000, Tilden in 1876 shares the honor of winning the popular vote and having the electoral vote stolen from him.

February First

Isaac Donald Everly is 73 today (Phil Everly was 71 last month). The brothers broke up in 1973 and did not speak to each other until they reunited in 1983.

Garret Morris of “Saturday Night Live” is 73 today.

Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons” is 72.

Lisa Marie Presley is 42.

Four-time Oscar winner for best director John Ford was born on this date.

It’s the birthday of American movie director John Ford, born Sean Aloysius O’Fearna, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine (1895), the youngest of 13 children. He made more than 120 films, most of them Westerns. On the sets of his movies he wore old khaki pants, tennis shoes with holes in the toes, a worn-out fedora, and a dirty scarf around his neck. He always had poor eyesight. He started wearing an eye patch like a pirate after he went blind in one eye. He usually worked with a glass of brandy in his hand and was always smoking a cigar.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Clark Gable was born on this date in 1901. He won the Best Actor award in 1935 for It Happened One Night. He was nominated for Best Actor for Mutiny of the Bounty and Gone With the Wind.

Langston Hughes was born on this date in 1902. This from his obituary in 1967.

Mr. Hughes was sometimes characterized as the “O. Henry of Harlem.” He was an extremely versatile and productive author who was particularly well known for his folksy humor.

In a description of himself written for “Twentieth Century Authors, a biographical dictionary, Mr. Hughes wrote:

“My chief literary influences have been Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. My favorite public figures include Jimmy Durante, Marlene Dietrich, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marian Anderson and Henry Armstrong.”

“I live in Harlem, New York City,” his autobiographical sketch continued. “I am unmarried. I like ‘Tristan,’ goat’s milk, short novels, lyric poems, heat, simple folk, boats and bullfights; I dislike ‘Aida,’ parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, buses and bridges.”

The New York Times

Victor Herbert was born Dublin on this date in 1859.

He studied music in Germany, where he became a cellist and composer for the court in Stuttgart and joined the faculty of the Stuttgart Conservatory of Music. In 1886, he and his wife, opera singer Therese Foerster, immigrated to New York where they worked for the Metropolitan Opera and became active in the musical life of the city.

Herbert, a composer of symphonic music and chamber string pieces, joined the faculty of the National Conservatory of Music. In 1893, he became leader of the 22nd Regiment Band of New York after the death of the celebrated Patrick S. Gilmore. Herbert wrote a number of marches while he was the leader of the band.

From 1898 to 1904 he directed the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and then formed the Victor Herbert Orchestra which performed lighter music. Herbert was most famous as a composer of light operetta. Between 1894 and 1924 he composed more than forty comic operettas which had lengthy runs on Broadway and on tour around the country. His best known remains Babes in Toyland, which opened in 1903, a fantasy inspired by Frank L. Baum’s popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Library of Congress

The Last Day of January

Today is the birthday

… of Carol Channing. Broadway’s Dolly Gallagher Levi is 89.

… of Ernie Banks. The baseball hall-of-famer is 79. Let’s play two.

… of composer Philip Glass. He’s 73.

The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.

Philip Glass: Biography

… of Queen Beatrix. She’s 72. Do you know what country is she queen of?

… of Nolan Ryan. The baseball hall-of-famer is 63.

… of KC. He’s 59. And his band was?

Minnie Driver is 40. Justin Timberlake is 29.

Suzanne Pleshette, Emily on the ”The Bob Newhart Show” and Annie (the teacher) in The Birds, would have been 73 today. She died two years ago.

Jean Simmons would have been 81 today; she died nine days ago. The actress was in such classic films as The Robe, Spartacus, Elmer Gantry and was twice nominated for an Oscar — Hamlet (supporting) and The Happy Ending (leading).

Norman Mailer was born 87 years ago today. He died in November 2007. Here’s a previous NewMexiKen entry on Mailer.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on this date in 1919.

As a competitor, Robinson was the Dodgers’ leader. In his 10 seasons, they won six National League pennants–1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956. They lost another in the 1951 playoff with the New York Giants, and another to the Philadelphia Phillies on the last day of the 1950 season.

In 1949, when he batted .342 to win the league title and drove in 124 runs, he was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. In 1947, he had been voted the rookie of the year.

“The only way to beat the Dodgers,” said Warren Giles, then the president of the Cincinnati Reds, later the National League president, “is to keep Robinson off the bases.”

He had a career batting average of .311. Primarily a line drive hitter, he accumulated only 137 home runs, with a high of 19 in both 1951 and 1952.

But on a team with such famous sluggers as Duke Snider, Gil Hodges and Roy Campanella, who was also black, he was the cleanup hitter, fourth in the batting order, a tribute to his ability to mover along teammates on base.

But his personality flared best as a baserunner. He had a total of 197 stolen bases. He stole home 11 times, the most by any player in the post-World War II era.

The New York Times

Thomas Merton was born on this date in 1915. Here’s a previous NewMexiKen entry on Merton.

John O’Hara was born on this date in 1905.

[O'Hara] went on to become one of the most popular serious writers of his lifetime, writing many best-selling novels, including Appointment in Samarra (1934) and A Rage to Live (1949). Most critics consider his best work to be his short stories, which were published as the Collected Stories of John O’Hara (1984). He holds the record for the greatest number of short stories published by a single author in The New Yorker magazine.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

And Pearl Zane Grey, the first American millionaire author, was born on this date in 1872. Here’s a previous NewMexiKen entry on Grey.

January 26th

Jules Feiffer is 81 today.

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 went to work for cartoonist Will Eisner. Then, he started drawing his own cartoons in the pages of The Village Voice. 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.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Bob Uecker is 75.

Scott Glenn is 69 today.

One-time Oscar nominee David Strathairn is 61.

Lucinda Williams is 57.

Eddie Van Halen is 55.

Ellen DeGeneres is 52.

Wayne Gretzky is 49.

Paul Newman was born 85 years ago today. Newman was 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.

The most overrated — especially by himself — person in American history was born on this date in 1880. That’s Douglas MacArthur.

Julia Morgan was born in San Francisco on January 26, 1872.

Miss Morgan was one of the first women to graduate from University of California at Berkeley with a degree in civil engineering. During her tenure at Berkeley, Morgan developed a keen interest in architecture which is thought to have been fostered by her mother’s cousin, Pierre Le Brun, who designed the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower in New York City. At Berkeley one of her instructors, Bernard Maybeck, encouraged her to pursue her architectural studies in Paris at the Ecole Nationale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts.

Arriving in Paris in 1896, she was initially refused admission because the Ecole had never before admitted a woman. After a two-year wait, Julia Morgan gained entrance to the prestigious program and became the first woman to receive a certificate in architecture. While in Paris, Morgan also found a mentor in her professor, Bernard Chaussemiche, for whom she worked as a drafter.

Soon after her graduation from the Ecole, Julia Morgan returned to her native San Francisco and began working for architect John Galen Howard. At the time Howard was the supervising architect of the University of California’s Master Plan, the commission of which he won by default from Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Morgan worked on the Master Plan drawing the elevations and designing the decorative details for the Mining Building built in memory of George Hearst. During this time Morgan also designed the Hearst Greek Theater on the Berkeley campus.
…

Over the course of the next 28 years, Morgan supervised nearly every aspect of construction at Hearst Castle including the purchase of everything from Spanish antiquities to Icelandic Moss to reindeer for the Castle’s zoo. She personally designed most of the structures, grounds, pools, animal shelters and workers’ camp down to the minutest detail. Additionally, Morgan worked closely with Hearst to integrate his vast art collection into the structures and grounds at San Simeon. She also worked on projects for Hearst’s other properties including Jolon, Wyntoon, Babicore, the “Hopi” residence at the Grand Canyon, the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Memorial Gymnasium at Berkeley, the Los Angeles Examiner Building, several of his Beverly Hills residences and Marion Davies’ beach house in Santa Monica.

Hearst Castle

January 25th ought to be a damn national holiday

Today is Etta James’ birthday. Tell Mama, Etta James is 72 today.

Jerry Wexler, Atlantic Records’ legendary producer, describes Etta James as “the greatest of all modern blues singers…the undisputed Earth Mother.” Her raw, unharnessed vocals and hot-blooded eroticism has made disciples of singers ranging from Janis Joplin to Bonnie Raitt. James’ pioneering 1950s hits – “The Wallflower” and “Good Rockin’ Daddy” – assure her place in the early history of rock and roll alongside Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. In the Sixties, as a soulful singer of pop and blues diva compared with the likes of Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, James truly found her musical direction and made a lasting mark.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Miss James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, same year as Creedence, Cream, the Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, Van Morrison and Dick Clark if you still need a clue.

At Last

Alicia Keys is 29.

I was thinkin’ ’bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying
When she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee
— Bob Dylan, “Thunder on the Mountain”

Songs in A Minor

Dean Jones is 79.

Virginia Woolf was born on January 25th in 1882.

Charles Curtis was born in Kansas on this date in 1860. Curtis was the 31st vice president of the United States, serving under President Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933. Curtis is the first person with non-European ancestry to ever serve as President or Vice President. His mother was part Kansa or Kaw, Osage and Potawatomi and part French. Curtis had a one-eighth Indian blood quantum.

And, Happy Birthday to Rob, one of two official sons-in-law of NewMexiKen.

The Golden Bear

Jack Nicklaus is 70 today.

Poe, source of mysteries even now

“There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Today is 201st anniversary of Poe’s birth. Since 1949 a mysterious individual has been visiting Poe’s grave in Baltimore every year early on the morning of January 19th, toasting Poe and leaving behind the Cognac and three roses. That person did not show up this year.

‘Poe Toaster’ Is a No-Show – ArtsBeat Blog

Also, Poe Toaster tribute is ‘nevermore’ – Baltimore Sun.

January 19th

Today is the birthday

… of Jean Stapleton. Edith Bunker is 87. She won three Emmys and two Golden Globes in that role.

… of Tippi Hedren. The actress in Hitchcock’s The Birds is 80.

… of Phil Everly. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with older brother Don) is 71.

Phil and Don transformed the Appalachian folk, bluegrass and country sounds of their Kentucky boyhood into a richly harmonized form of rock and roll. The sons of entertainers Margaret and Ike Everly, a traveling country and western team, the Everly Brothers performed as part of the family act on radio and in concert. On their own, they sang beguilingly of adolescent romance in crisp, shimmering voices. With Don taking the melody and Phil harmonizing above him, the Everlys released a steady string of hit records between 1957-1962 that crossed over from country to pop and even R&B charts.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Shelley Fabares. Donna Reed’s television daughter is 66.

… of Dolly Parton. She’s 64.

With their strong feminine stances in the 1960s and 1970s, Dolly Rebecca Parton, along with fellow female pioneers Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, revolutionized the world of country music for women performers. Then Parton took her crusade a step farther by crossing over to the pop world—landing on the cover of Rolling Stone, achieving pop hits, and starring in a series of Hollywood movies. Along the way, however, she ultimately lost much of her core country audience, to the point that in 1997 she dissolved her fan club, which had been one of the staunchest in country music. But Parton’s career—and her appeal to fans of hard country—was far from over. Beginning in 1999 she returned to the music of her youth and began rebuilding a tradition-minded fan base with a series of critically acclaimed bluegrass albums.

Country Music Hall of Fame

… of Desi Arnaz Jr. Little Ricky, Lucille Ball’s TV son, also first appeared 57 years ago today, on I Love Lucy about 12 hours after Desi Jr. was born.

… of comedian Paul Rodriguez, 55.

… of Katey Sagal. The Married…With Children mom is 56.

… of Paul Rodriguez, 55.

… of Drea de Matteo. The actress who was whacked on The Sopranos is 38.

Paul Cezanne was born on this date in 1839. Click Cezanne painting of Chrysanthemums for larger version.

Robert E. Lee

… was born in Stratford, Virginia, on this date in 1807, the son of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee.

In 1810 the Lee family moved to Alexandria, then in the District of Columbia. The Lee’s lived first at 611 Cameron, but from 1811 or 1812 at 607 Oronoco.

Lee graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1829, second in his class and reputedly the only cadet to this day to have no demerits on his record. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great granddaughter of Martha Washington, at Arlington House in 1831. Arlington House was in the District of Columbia from the time it was constructed until 1847 when the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was receded to Virginia.

So, although Lee supposedly supported preservation of the Union that his father and uncles had helped create and opposed slavery, and although his residence had been in Virginia no more than 17 of his 54 years, in 1861 he turned down command of the Union forces to remain loyal to Virginia.

I suggest that this nullified his record of no demerits.

January 18th

Today is the birthday

… of Kevin Costner. Costner won the Oscars for director and best picture for Dances With Wolves and was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Lt. John Dunbar. He’s 55 today.

… of hockey hall-of-fame inductee Mark Messier. He’s 49.

… of Jesse L. Martin. The Law & Order actor is 41.

It’s also the birthday of Cary Grant (Archibald Alexander Leach, 1904-1986) and Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminski, 1913-1987). Both won honorary Oscars though neither won the real thing; Grant had two nominations.

Daniel Webster was born on January 18, 1782.

The first college basketball game with five players on a side was played on this date in 1896 at Iowa City, Iowa. The University of Chicago defeated the University of Iowa 15 to 12.

Best lines of the past 304 years, so far

• The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money.
• He is not well-bred, that cannot bear ill-breeding in others.
• You may talk too much on the best of subjects.
• A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
• All would live long, but none would be old.
• One today is worth two tomorrows.
• Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
• Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
• Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
• Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
• Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
• Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.
• I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
• If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
• I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

All the above from Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston on this date in 1706.

January 17th

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is 46 today.

January 13th

Billy Gray, the kid that befriended Klaatu in the classic 1951 sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, is 72 today. Billy’s old enough to play Professor Barnhardt this time around. Gray was Bud on the 50s sitcom Father Knows Best.

Richard Moll of Night Court is 67.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 49.

Patrick Dempsey is 44.

Orlando Bloom is 33.

I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; Believe me, honey, rich is better.”

Sophia Kalish was born at a farm house along the road in Russia as her mother was emigrating to America on this date in 1884. As Sophie Tucker she was one of the great stars of vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies and early movies. In the 1930s she brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century into her show. She was billed as “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas.” Her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era. In addition to her performing, Sophie Tucker was active in efforts to unionize professional actors, and was elected president of the American Federation of Actors in 1938.

“From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash.”

The Library of Congress has more about The Last of the Red Hot Mamas.

A.B. Guthrie was born on this date in 1901. His The Big Sky (1946) is one of the classic works of western American literature. Its sequel, The Way West (1949), won the Pulitizer Prize for fiction in 1950.

What “The Big Sky” is: An unflinching account not only of the hardships and dangers of the 1830-1845 mountain man era, but also a glimpse into the meaning of our own existence here — the reasons why we come, the reasons why we stay. True to Guthrie’s bid for honesty, the answers aren’t always pretty.

Guthrie’s Boone Caudill is the quintessential anti-hero, a mean, moody misanthrope who heads West to escape his troubled past as well as to seek adventure and freedom. Ultimately, though, trouble follows Boone — because, after all, the one thing he can’t run away from is himself.

The theme, Guthrie wrote, is “that each man kills the thing he loves.

“If it had any originality at all, it was only that a band of men, the fur-hunters, killed the life they loved and killed it with a thoughtless prodigality perhaps unmatched.”

“The 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century” by The Missoulian (1999)

Horatio Alger Jr. was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on this date in 1832.

He was one of the most influential writers in American history. He wrote more than a hundred novels, almost every single one of which tells the same story: A young boy, living in poverty, manages to find success and happiness by working hard and never giving up. But even though Alger’s books were all the same, and none was a literary masterpiece, they were read by thousands of young Americans all across the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been argued that Horatio Alger, more than any other person, was responsible for creating the idea of the American Dream.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

January 12th

Today is the birthday

… of Ray Price. Still for the good times at 84.

When Ray Noble Price was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, many noted that the honor was long overdue. Such feelings weren’t based so much on the longevity of his career or on the number of major hits he has recorded, for in those regards Price was no different from many other deserving artists awaiting induction. More importantly, Price has been one of country’s great innovators. He changed the sound of country music from the late 1950s forward by developing a rhythmic brand of honky-tonk that has been hugely influential ever since. As steel guitarist Don Helms, a veteran of Hank Williams’s Drifting Cowboys once put it, “Ray Price created an era.”

Country Music Hall of Fame

… of Glenn Yarbrough. He’s 80.

… of William Lee Golden. The big, bearded member, but not the bass voice, of the Oak Ridge Boys is 71.

… of Smokin’ Joe Frazier. The champ is 66.

… of Cynthia Robinson. She’s dancing to the music at 64 (Sly and the Family Stone).

You might like to hear the horns blowin’,
Cynthia on the throne, yeah!
Cynthia & Jerry got a message they’re sayin’:
[Cynthia:] All the squares, go home!

… of Kirstie Alley. She’s 59.

… of the most dangerous man in America, Rush Limbaugh. The audio-terrorist is 59.

… of Howard Stern. He’s 56.

… of broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour. She’s 52.

… of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The billionaire is 46.

Jack London was born in San Francisco on this date in 1876. London wrote more than 50 books, including The Call of the Wild and White Fang (1906). His most unforgettable story may be To Build a Fire. London died at age 40.

John Hancock was born on this date in 1737. Hancock was President of the Continental Congress of the United States of America in the summer of 1776. He was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence.

01/10/10

Today is the birthday

… of Willie McCovey. “Stretch,” a baseball hall-of-famer, is 72.

TOP LEFT-HANDED HOME RUN HITTER IN N.L.
HISTORY WITH 521. SECOND ONLY TO LOU GEHRIG
WITH 18 CAREER GRAND SLAMS. LED N.L. IN HOMERS
THREE TIMES AND RBI’S TWICE. N.L. ROOKIE OF
YEAR IN 1959, MVP IN 1969 AND COMEBACK PLAYER
OF THE YEAR IN ’77. TEAMED WITH WILLIE MAYS
FOR AWESOME 1-2 PUNCH IN GIANTS’ LINEUP.

… of Scott McKenzie. So “if you’re going to San Francisco” wish Scott a happy 71st birthday.

… of Rod Stewart. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 65.

Rod Stewart can be regarded as the rock generation’s heir to Sam Cooke. Like Cooke, Stewart delivers both romantic ballads and uptempo material with conviction and panache, and he sings in a warm, soulful rasp. A singer’s singer, Stewart seemed made to inhabit the spotlight.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of William Sanderson. The character actor (E.B. Farnum in “Deadwood,” Larry on “Newhart,” Lippy in “Lonesome Dove”) is 62.

… of George Foreman. The boxing hall-of-famer and cook is 61. Foreman has five daughters and five sons and has named all of the sons George — George Jr., George III, George IV, George V, and George VI.

… of Patricia Mae Andrzejewski. Pat Benatar is 57. She won four consecutive Grammy awards in the 1980s for “Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female.”

… of Shawn Colvin. The singer is 54.

Shawn Colvin is one of the bright spots of the so-called “new folk movement” that began in the late ’80s. And though she grew out of the somewhat limited “woman with a guitar” school, she has managed to keep the form fresh with a diverse approach, avoiding the clichéd sentiments and all-too-often formulaic arrangements that have plagued the genre. In less than a decade of recording, Colvin has emerged as a songcraftsman with plenty of pop smarts, which has earned her a broad and loyal following.

All Music Guide

Jim Croce was born on this date in 1943. Croce released just 11 singles, but “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle” made it to number one, the first in July 1973, the second posthumously after Croce died in a plane crash at age 30 in September of that year.

In the music industry, arguably the worst tragedy that can befall an artist is to die in their prime, when he or she is just beginning to break through to the mainstream and reach people on a national level. One such artist was Jim Croce, a songwriter with a knack for both upbeat, catchy singles and empathetic, melancholy ballads. Though Croce only recorded a few studio albums before an untimely plane crash, he continues to be remembered posthumously. Croce appealed to fans as a common man, and it was not a gimmick — he was a father and husband who went through a series of blue-collar jobs. And whether he used dry wit, gentle emotions, or sorrow, Croce sang with a rare form of honesty and power. Few artists have ever been able to pull off such down-to-earth storytelling as convincingly as he was.

allmusic

Had he not smoked, the historian and author Stephen Ambrose might have been 74 today; he died in 2002.

… born in Lovington, Illinois (1936), who wrote several best-selling books about American history, including Band of Brothers (1992) and Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996).

He was a longtime professor, and many of the stories he wrote in his popular history books were ones he’d told over and over to his college students, trying hard to entertain them. He said, “There is nothing like standing before 50 students at 8:00 a.m. to start talking about an event that occurred 100 years ago, because the look on their faces is a challenge — ‘Let’s see you keep me awake.’ You learn what works and what doesn’t in a hurry.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Dumas Malone was born in Coldwater, Michigan, on this date in 1892. Professor Malone, who died in 1986, was a historian, biographer and editor. His foremost work, the six volume Jefferson and His Time, is the most authoritative biography of the William and Mary alumnus who became author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia. The last volume, Sage of Monticello was completed when Malone was 89 years-old. Dumas Malone was presented the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan in 1983.

January 9th

Today is the birthday

… of Judith Krantz, 82. She published her first novel at age 50.

… of Bart Starr. The hall-of-fame quarterback is 76.

… of Dick Enberg. The sportscaster is 75 (oh, my!).

… of Joan Baez. The singer is 69.

… of Jimmy Page. The Led Zeppelin rocker is 66.

Combining the visceral power and intensity of hard rock with the finesse and delicacy of British folk music, Led Zeppelin redefined rock in the Seventies and for all time. They were as influential in that decade as the Beatles were in the prior one. Their impact extends to classic and alternative rockers alike. Then and now, Led Zeppelin looms larger than life on the rock landscape as a band for the ages with an almost mystical power to evoke primal passions. The combination of Jimmy Page’s powerful, layered guitar work, Robert Plant’s keening, upper-timbre vocals, John Paul Jones’ melodic bass playing and keyboard work, and John Bonham’s thunderous drumming made for a band whose alchemy proved enchanting and irresistible. “The motto of the group is definitely, ‘Ever onward,’” Page said in 1977, perfectly summing up Led Zeppelin’s forward-thinking philosophy.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Brenda Gayle Webb. Loretta Lynn’s little sister Crystal Gayle is 59.

… of J.K. Simmons. He’s 55. He’s seen on The Closer and Law & Order as Dr. Skoda, and was terrific, I thought, as Juno’s dad. He’s very good in a small role in Up in the Air, too.

… of New York Times Pulitizer Prize winning book critic Michiko Kakutani. She is 55 today.

… of Dave Matthews. He’s 43.

… of Chad Ochocinco. He’s Tres-Dos.

Gilligan (and Maynard Krebs) was born on this date in 1935. Bob Denver died in 2005.

The stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was born Rose Louise Hovick on this date in 1914, or January 8, 1911, or February 9, 1911.

Toyota and Datsun (Nissan) made their first appearance in the U.S. at the Los Angeles Auto Show 51 years ago today.

iTunes was announced 9 years ago today; the iPhone three years ago today.

Jesse Garon Presley and Elvis Aron Presley

… were born in a house without electricity or plumbing in East Tupelo, Mississippi, on this date in 1935. Jesse, the older twin, was stillborn. The parents were Vernon Elvis Presley and Gladys Smith Presley.

January 7th

Today is the birthday

… of William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist. He’s 82.

… of Paul Revere Dick, 72. He and Mark Lindsay formed Paul Revere & The Raiders in 1960. They recorded “Louie Louie” in the same studio as The Kingsmen in Portland, Oregon in 1963. (The song was written in 1955.) The Kingsmen won that battle, but The Raiders went on to record five top 10 hits, including the number one, “Indian Reservation,” which sold six million copies.

… of Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone. He’s 64.

… of Kenneth Clark Loggins. He’s 62.

… of David Stephen Caruso, 54.

… of Katherine Anne Couric. University of Virginia grad (1979), head resident of the Lawn and Tri-Delt, Katie Couric is 53.

… of Donna Rice, 52 today. That’s her in 1988 on Senator Gary Hart’s lap near the boat Monkey Business. That particular monkey business removed the married senator from the presidential race where he had been considered the front-runner.

… of Nicholas Kim Coppola. The Oscar-winner, known better as Nicolas Cage, is 46.

Prissy, actress Butterfly McQueen, was born Thelma McQueen on this date in 1911. Prissy was her first movie role. Ms. McQueen, who never married, earned a college degree at age 64. She died in 1995.

Cartoonist Charles Addams, from whom the Addams family emerged, was born on this date in 1912. Addams’s cartoons appeared in The New Yorker from 1932 until his death in 1988. His estate has managed to keep his cartoons largely off the internet.

December 30th

The penultimate day of the year is the birthday

… of Russ Tamblyn. Riff, “a Jet to his dying day,” is 75.

… of Sandy Koufax. The most dominant pitcher in the game in the early 1960s, the man who threw four no-hitters including a perfect game is 74.

… of Paul (Noel actually) Stookey. Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary is 72.

… of James Burrows. The director of “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “Will and Grace” is 69.

… of Fred Ward. The actor (Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff and Earl Bassett in the greatest movie ever, Tremors) is 67.

… of Monkees Michael Nesmith (67) and Davy Jones (64).

… of Patti Smith. Punk rock’s poet laureate is 63.

… of Meredith Viera and of Matt Lauer. The Today show hosts are 56 and 52.

… of Tracey Ullman. She’s 50.

… of Eldrick Woods. Tiger is 34.

… of LeBron James. He’s 25 today.

Have a Coke and a smile today.

It’s the birthday of the man who introduced us to Coca-Cola, Asa Griggs Candler, born in Villa Rica, Georgia (1851). He grew up during the Civil War and wanted to be a doctor, but his family was so poor that he could only receive an elementary school education before becoming a pharmacist’s apprentice. But Candler proved to be business savvy, slowly building his own drugstore empire, and in 1886 he bought sole rights to John Pemberton’s original formula of Coca-Cola and formed the Coca-Cola Company in 1890. Candler understood the importance of advertising. He used calendars, billboards, and posters to keep the Coca-Cola trademark prominent in the public’s mind. After selling the patent in 1919, he went on to serve as Atlanta’s mayor and funded a teaching hospital for Emory University’s Medical School.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

The Genius Among Geniuses, Alfred Einstein, was born on December 30, 1880.

Bo Diddley was born on this date in 1928.

Music historian Robert Palmer has described Bo Diddley as “one of the most original and fertile rhythmic intelligences of our time.” He will forever be known as the creator of the “Bo Diddley beat,” one of the cornerstone rhythms of rock and roll. He employed it in his namesake song, “Bo Diddley,” as well as other primal rockers like “Mona.” This distinctive African-based rhythm pattern (which goes bomp bomp bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up from Diddley by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock and roll through the decades.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

December 29th

Mary Tyler Moore was born in Brooklyn, 72 years ago today.

On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore played Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman “making it on her own” in 1970s Minneapolis. MTM first pitched her character to CBS as a young divorcee, but CBS executives believed her role as Laura Petrie was so firmly etched in the public mind that viewers would think she had divorced Dick Van Dyke (and that the American public would not find a divorced woman likable), so Richards was rewritten as a woman who had moved to the big city after ending a long affair. Richards landed a job working in the news department of fictional WJM-TV, where Moore’s all-American spunk played off against the gruff boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner), world-weary writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) and pompous anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). In early seasons, her all-male work environment was counterbalanced by a primarily female home life, where again her character contrasted with her ditzy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) and her New York-born neighbor and best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper).

The Encyclopedia of Television

Angelina Jolie’s dad is 71. That would be four-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner, Jon Voight. Voight won his Oscar for Coming Home, as did co-star Jane Fonda. The film had eight nominations, three wins.

Marianne Faithfull is 63. Faithfull is a descendant of Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century author and source of the term “masochism.” Her signature song, As Tears Go By, was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Mayday Malone is 62. That’s Sam, Ted Danson.

Paula Poundstone is 50 today.

Two-time Oscar nominee Jude Law is 37.

On this date 52 years ago Tobin Rote threw for four touchdowns and ran for another as the Detroit Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 59-14, in the NFL championship game. (That was it. There was no Super Bowl then.) It was the Lions’ third title in six years, all over the Browns. Since then the Lions have missed 43 out of 52 post seasons (counting this year) and are 1-9 in games when they did make it. For nearly all of that time the Lions have been owned by William Clay Ford, grandson of Henry and son of Edsel. The Lions aren’t exactly built Ford tough.

The 17th president, Andrew Johnson, was born on this date in 1808. From the obituary in The New York Times in 1875:

The history this man leaves is a rare one. His career was remarkable, even in this country; it would have been quite impossible in any other. It presents the spectacle of a man who never went to school cession of posts of civil responsibility to the highest office in the land, and evincing his continued hold upon the popular heart by a subsequent election to the Senate in the teeth of a bitter personal and political opposition.

And today is the birthday of Donna, great and loyal friend, doting mother and grandmother and aunt, highly regarded federal executive and American Indian leader. She keeps mentioning making posole. She aces that and she’ll be perfect. Happy Birthday, Donna!

December 28th

Five-time Oscar nominee Denzel Washington is 55 today. He’s won twice — leading for Training Day and supporting for Glory.

Six-time Oscar nominee Maggie Smith is 75. She’s won twice — leading for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and supporting for California Suite.

Martin Milner, the senior police officer on “Adam-12″ is 78.

Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber), the creator of “Spider-Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” is 87.

Mackenzie Rosman of 7th Heaven is 20.

Earl Kenneth Hines was born on December 28, 1903.

A brilliant keyboard virtuoso, Earl “Fatha” Hines was one of the first great piano soloists in jazz, and one of the very few musicians who could hold his own with Louis Armstrong. His so-called ‘trumpet’ style used doubled octaves in the right hand to produce a clear melodic line that stood out over the sound of a whole band, but he also had a magnificent technical command of the entire range of the keyboard.

Earl Hines at All About Jazz

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, on this date in 1856. After graduating from Princeton in 1879, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia for one year. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a doctoral degree.

Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. He became President of Princeton in 1902. His commentary on contemporary political matters led to his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910 and as President in 1912.

Wilson was the second of three sitting American Presidents to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. (Theodore Roosevelt was the first, Barack Obama the third.)