… of U.S. Senator Robert Byrd. The West Virginian is 92. Byrd entered the Congress as a representative on January 3, 1953; he became a senator six years later. He is now the longest serving member of Congress in history, breaking Carl Hayden’s record two days ago. Hayden served Arizona from statehood until 1969.
… of Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, “who through her magnificent epic writing has — in the words of Alfred Nobel — been of very great benefit to humanity.” She’s 86.
…of best supporting actress Oscar-winner Estelle Parsons. She won the award for “Bonnie and Clyde” and was nominated again the following year for “Rachel, Rachel.” She’s 82.
… of actor and “Family Feud” host Richard Dawson. He’s 77.
… of Don DeLillo. He’s 72 today.
… of comedian Dick Smothers. The straight man of the duo is 71.
… of Vice President Joe Biden. He’s 67.
… of Veronica Hamel of Hill Street Blues. She’s 66.
… of journalist Judy Woodruff. She’s 63.
… of Joe Walsh of The Eagles. He’s 62. Life’s been good to him so far.
I have a mansion forget the price
Ain’t never been there they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all
They say I’m crazy but I have a good time
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life’s been good to me so far
My Maserati does 185
I lost my license now I don’t drive
I have a limo ride in the back
I lock the doors in case I’m attacked
… of Richard Masur. He was the neighbor/boyfriend on On Day At a Time. He’s 61 today.
… of Bo Derek. She’s now five 10s and a 3.
… of Sean Young. Ms. Young won the Razzie for worst actress AND worst supporting actress for “A Kiss Before Dying” (she played twins). She’s been nominated for the award five other times. She’s 50.
Robert F. Kennedy might have been 84 today. He was assassinated at age 42.
Astronomer Edwin Hubble was born on this date in 1889.
During the past 100 years, astronomers have discovered quasars, pulsars, black holes and planets orbiting distant suns. But all these pale next to the discoveries Edwin Hubble made in a few remarkable years in the 1920s. At the time, most of his colleagues believed the Milky Way galaxy, a swirling collection of stars a few hundred thousand light-years across, made up the entire cosmos. But peering deep into space from the chilly summit of Mount Wilson, in Southern California, Hubble realized that the Milky Way is just one of millions of galaxies that dot an incomparably larger setting.
Hubble went on to trump even that achievement by showing that this galaxy-studded cosmos is expanding — inflating majestically like an unimaginably gigantic balloon — a finding that prompted Albert Einstein to acknowledge and retract what he called “the greatest blunder of my life.” Hubble did nothing less, in short, than invent the idea of the universe and then provide the first evidence for the Big Bang theory, which describes the birth and evolution of the universe. He discovered the cosmos, and in doing so founded the science of cosmology.
… of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). Inhofe is the senator who has said, “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He’s 75, his age having now exceeded his IQ.
… of Gordon Lightfoot. The singer is 71.
I can see her lyin’ back in her satin dress
In a room where you do what you don’t confess
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs
… of Martin Scorsese. The Oscar-winning director is 67.
… of Danny DeVito. The actor/director/producer is 65. Very early in his career DeVito played Martini in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
… of Lorne Michaels. The producer of Saturday Night Live is 65.
So he moved back to Canada, where he formed a comedy duo with Hart Pomerantz, and they had a television variety show on Canadian television, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour. They contracted their talents to comedic acts in the United States, writing for Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, and Woody Allen. They also wrote for the NBC show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and then NBC asked Michaels to come up with a comedy show to replace the Johnny Carson reruns that aired Saturday nights at 11 p.m.
Michaels recruited talent from all sorts of places. Dan Aykroyd was a fellow Canadian, and Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner had worked on the National Lampoon show. Muppet creator Jim Henson created sketches for the show, and recent Harvard grad Al Franken was signed on as a writer. And so Michaels put together the first season, 1975–1976, and won an Emmy for it.
… of Chris Noth. He hit the double-nickel yesterday.
But today is the birthday
… of Buckwheat Zydeco. He’s 62.
Contemporary zydeco’s most popular performer, accordionist Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural was the natural successor to the throne vacated by the death of his mentor Clifton Chenier; infusing his propulsive party music with strains of rock and R&B, his urbanized sound — complete with touches of synthesizer and trumpet — married traditional and contemporary zydeco with uncommon flair, in the process reaching a wider mainstream audience than any artist before him. (allmusic)
… of Prince Charles. He’s 61. I thought it was “ladies-in-waiting,” not princes-in-waiting.
… of Condoleezza Rice. She’s 55.
… of Yanni (Yawn-ee). He’s 55.
… of Laura San Giacomo. She’s 48.
Today is the birthday of Astrid Lindgren, born Astrid Ericsson in Sweden in 1907.
She’s the creator of Pippi Longstocking, a nine-year-old girl with no parents who lives in a red house at the edge of a Swedish village with her horse and her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson. She has red pigtails, and she wears one black stocking and one brown, with black shoes twice as long as her feet. She eats whole chocolate cakes and sleeps with her feet on the pillow, and she’s the strongest girl in the world.
Composer Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrants.
In 1942, Copland began working with Martha Graham on Appalachian Spring, a ballet that eventually won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize in music. The Library of Congress’s Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commissioned the work from Graham and Copland. Between July 1942 and July 1943, Graham sent three scripts to Copland. On receiving the third script, Copland wrote the music we know as Appalachian Spring.
Hearing the music, Graham revised the action yet again:
I have been working on your music. It is so beautiful and so wonderfully made. I have become obsessed by it. But I have also been doing a little cursing, too, as you probably did earlier over that not-so-good script. But what you did from that has made me change in many places. Naturally that will not do anything to the music, it is simply that the music made me change. It is so knit and of a completeness that it takes you into very strong hands and leads you into its own world. And there I am.
In the end, no script accompanied what Copland called “Ballet for Martha” and Graham retitled, Appalachian Spring. A splendid collaboration between American masters of music and dance, the ballet premiered at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium in 1944.
Mary Travers, Mary of Peter, Paul & Mary, would have been 73 today.
Cardinals hall-of-fame pitcher Bob Gibson is 74.
Over 17 seasons with the Cardinals, Bob Gibson won 20 games five times and established himself as the very definition of intimidation, competitiveness, and dignity. One of the best athletes to ever play the game, the ex-Harlem Globetrotter posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, the lowest figure since 1914, and was named the National League Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player. Known as a premier big-game pitcher, Gibson posted World Series records of seven consecutive wins and 17 strikeouts in a game, and was named World Series MVP in 1964 and 1967.
Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland.
Largely self-taught, Banneker was one of the the first African Americans to gain distinction in science. His significant accomplishments and correspondence with prominent political figures profoundly influenced how African Americans were viewed during the Federal period.
Banneker spent most of his life on his family’s 100-acre farm outside Baltimore. There, he taught himself astronomy by watching the stars and learned advanced mathematics from borrowed textbooks. In 1752, Banneker garnered public acclaim by building a clock entirely out of wood. The clock, believed to be the first built in America, kept precise time for decades. Twenty years later, Banneker began making astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a 1789 solar eclipse. His estimate, made well in advance of the celestial event, contradicted predictions of better-known mathematicians and astronomers.
Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk, was born on this date in 1801. His timing was perfect. He patented the milk just before the civil war when it’s use as part of the field ration made it a success. Borden was also instrumental in requiring dairy farmers to maintain clean facilities if they wanted to sell their milk to his company — Eagle Brand.
The first of seven African-Americans to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, Dorothy Dandridge was born on this date in 1922. She was nominated for Carmen Jones in 1955.
And 70 years ago the Holocaust began:
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Hitler ordered a series of supposedly spontaneous attacks on Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. The idea was to make the attacks look random, and then accuse the Jews of inciting the violence. In all, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or destroyed. Rioters looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. The event was used to justify barring Jews from schools and most public places, and forcing them to adhere to new curfews. In the days following, thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps. The event was called Kristallnacht, which means, “Night of Broken Glass.” It’s generally considered the official beginning of the Holocaust. Before that night, the Nazis had killed people secretly and individually. After Kristallnacht, the Nazis felt free to persecute the Jews openly, because they knew no one would stop them.
Mike Nichols is 78 today. Nichols has been nominated for four best director Oscars, winning for “The Graduate.”
Sally Field is 63. Field has won two best actress Oscars (because the Academy really likes her); one for “Norma Rae” and the other for “Places in the Heart.”
Glenn Frey of The Eagles is 61.
Blues singer Rory Block is 60. So is jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval.
California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, is 54.
Ethan Hawke is 39. Hawke has been nominated for two Oscars, one for supporting actor, “Training Day,” and one for co-writing, “Before Sunset.” Hawke has also published novels, including The Hottest State and Ash Wednesday.
Thandie Newton is 37. Miss Newton’s mother is Zimbawbean, her father English.
James Jones was born on November 6th in 1921.
He’s best known as the author of the military novel From Here to Eternity (1951). At the urging of his father, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1939. He was stationed in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He went on to fight in the battle of Guadalcanal, where he was wounded, earning the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He kept a journal while he was in the Army, and when he got home from the war, he wrote a novel about the experience of disillusioned veterans. It was rejected by all the major publishing houses, but the editor Maxwell Perkins liked a particular scene from the novel and told him to expand it. He spent five years expanding that scene, and it became the novel From Here to Eternity (1951), the story of a soldier’s life in the years leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The novel was a huge international best-seller, in part because Jones tried to portray military life as realistically as possible, using dirty language in the dialogue and describing soldiers’ reckless sex lives.
New Yorker founder Harold Ross was born in Aspen, Colorado, on November 6, 1892.
Walter “Big Train” Johnson was born 122 years ago today. Johnson was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame — along with Cobb, Ruth, Mathewson and Wagner.
There were no sophisticated measuring devices in the early 1900s, but Walter Johnson’s fastball was considered to be in a class by itself. Using a sweeping sidearm delivery, the Big Train fanned 3,508 over a brilliant 21-year career with the Washington Senators, and his 110 shutouts are more than any pitcher. Despite hurling for losing teams most of his career, he won 417 games – second only to Cy Young on the all-time list – and enjoyed 10 successive seasons of 20 or more victories.
James Naismith was born on this date in 1861. He’s the guy that created basketball and for whom the basketball hall-of-fame is named — and basketball’s most prestigious trophies. Dr. James Naismith’s 13 Original Rules of Basketball.
John Philip Sousa was born on November 6, 1854.
Sousa said a march ‘should make a man with a wooden leg step out’, and his surely did. However, he was no mere maker of marches, but an exceptionally inventive composer of over two hundred works, including symphonic poems, suites, songs and operettas created for both orchestra and for band. John Philip Sousa personified the innocent energy of turn-of-the-century America and he represented America across the globe. His American tours first brought classical music to hundreds of towns.
… of Robert Caro, born on this date in 1936. The Writer’s Almanac (2005) tells us about Caro, including this:
Since 1974, Caro has been working on a four-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. He says he picked Johnson to write about because he wanted to write about political power, and he believes Lyndon Johnson was the most masterful getter and user of political power in the 20th century. For his research on Johnson, Caro has gone through 34 million documents at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, and he has conducted more than 1,000 interviews. He lived in Johnson’s hometown for three years so that he could get to know the people there well enough that they would open up to him. He also tracked down every living member of Johnson’s grammar school class.
Caro eventually uncovered the fact that Johnson had committed an unprecedented series of lies, manipulations, and vote tampering on his way to becoming a United States Senator. But what fascinated Caro was the fact that a politician who would commit such crimes in order to get power could still use that power for good. He points out that, when Johnson got into office, he became the greatest advocate for civil rights of any politician since Abraham Lincoln.
Caro’s third volume Master of the Senate won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.
… of Rudolfo Anaya, 72.
[B]orn in Pastura, New Mexico, in 1937. He grew up in the village of Santa Rosa, and he grew up speaking only Spanish, listening to folktales while he helped his family harvest. He went to college, then he taught middle school and high school. And in the evenings, he started to write a book, a fictionalized account of life in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He couldn’t get it published, but finally, in 1972, he found a small press in California, and it became a classic: Bless Me, Última.
… of Timothy B. Schmit, of the Eagles is 62. Before the Eagles, he was in Poco.
… of Terry “The Toad.” Charles Martin Smith is 56 today.
Ezra Pound was born in Halley, Idaho, on this date in 1885.
Ezra Pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. . . . His own significant contributions to poetry begin with his promulgation of Imagism, a movement in poetry which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry–stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language, and foregoing traditional rhyme and meter in order to, in Pound’s words, “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the metronome.” His later work, for nearly fifty years, focused on the encyclopedic epic poem he entitled The Cantos.
José Manuel Gallegos was born in Abiquiú, Nuevo México, on this date in 1815.
His people were Hispanos, descendants of early Spanish settlers, and Gallegos went on to become New Mexico’s first delegate to the U.S. Congress.
Raised during the Mexican revolution, Gallegos was surrounded by republican ideals during his formative years of education with the Franciscan missionaries in Taos and Durango. Ordained a Catholic priest at age 25, Gallegos readily added political tasks to his clerical responsibilities. He became pastor of San Felipe de Neri church in La Villa de Albuquerque, as well as one of the nineteen “electors,” men who chose Nuevo México’s deputy to the Mexican Congress.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the Southwest, from Texas to California, to the United States. Nuevo México became the U.S. territory of New Mexico, and Gallegos was elected to its first Territorial Council. He won the election for delegate to the U.S. Congress in 1853, the second Hispanic Congressional Representative in U.S. history. Thirty-one years had elapsed since Joseph Marion Hernández, from the territory of Florida, had become the first Hispanic in Congress in 1822.
Suspended from the priesthood for refusing to accept the authority of French religious superior, Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (who became the subject of Willa Cather’s novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop), Gallegos put increasing energy into his political life. Subsequently, he was elected to the New Mexico Territorial House of Representatives, served as treasurer of the territory, and was superintendent of New Mexico Indian affairs. Gallegos returned to the U.S. House of Representatives for a second term in 1871.
… of football hall-of-fame quarterback Yelberton Abraham “Y.A.” Tittle, 83.
Career record: 2,427 completions, 33,070 yards, 242 TDs, 13 games over 300 yards passing…Paced 1961, 1962, 1963 Giants to division titles…Threw 33 TD passes in 1962, 36 in 1963…NFL’s Most Valuable Player, 1961, 1963.
… of Bill Wyman. The Rolling Stones’ bassist (1962-1992) is 73.
… of F. Murray Abraham. The Oscar-winning best actor (Amadeus) is 70 today.
… of Kevin Kline. The Oscar-winning best supporting actor (A Fish Called Wanda) is 62 today.
Bob Kane, the cartoonist who created “Batman” was born on October 24, 1915. From his Times obituary in 1998:
In 1938 he started drawing adventure strips, ”Rusty and His Pals” and ”Clip Carson,” for National Comics. That same year, a comic-book hero called Superman appeared. Vincent Sullivan, the editor of National Comics, who also owned Superman, asked Mr. Kane and Mr. Finger to come up with a Supercompetitor. They developed Batman on a single weekend. Mr. Kane was 18 [23].
The first Batman strip came out in May 1939 in Detective Comics, one year after the debut of Superman. Batman’s first adventure was called ”The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” And he was another kind of superhero entirely. Batman wasn’t as strong as Superman, but he was much more agile, a better dresser and had better contraptions and a cooler place to live.
He lived in the Batcave, drove the Batmobile, which had a crime lab and a closed-circuit television in the back, and owned a Batplane. He also kept a lot of tools in his utility belt, including knockout gas, a smoke screen and a radio.
”Since he had no superpowers, he had to rely only on his physical and his mental skills,” said Allan Asherman, the librarian of DC Comics.
Playwright and director Moss Hart was born on October 24th in 1904.
A distinguished librettist, director, and playwright who was particularly renowned for his work with George S. Kaufman. Hart is reported to have written the book for the short-lived “Jonica” in 1930, but his first real Broadway musical credit came three years later when he contributed the sketches to the Irving Berlin revue “As Thousands Cheer.” Subsequent revues for which he co-wrote sketches included “The Show Is On,” “Seven Lively Arts,” and “Inside USA.” During the remainder of the ’30s Hart wrote the librettos for “The Great Waltz” (adapted from the operetta “Waltzes of Vienna”), “Jubilee,” “I’d Rather Be Right” (with Kaufman), and “Sing Out the News” (which he also co-produced with Kaufman and Max Gordon). In 1941 he wrote one of his wittiest and most inventive books for “Lady in Dark,” which starred Gertrude Lawrence, and gave Danny Kaye his first chance on Broadway.
Thereafter, as far as the musical theater was concerned, apart from the occasional revue, Hart concentrated mostly on directing, and sometimes producing, shows such as Irving Berlin’s “Miss Liberty,” and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s smash hits “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.” He won a Tony Award for his work on “My Fair Lady.” His considerable output for the straight theater included “Light up the Sky,” “The Climate of Eden,” “Winged Victory,” and (with Kaufman) “Once in a Lifetime,” “You Can’t Take It With You” (for which they both won the Pulitzer Prize), and “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Hart also wrote the screenplays for two film musicals, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1952) and the 1954 remake of A STAR IS BORN, starring Judy Garland. His absorbing autobiography, ACT ONE, was filmed in 1963 with George Hamilton as Hart and Jason Robards as Kaufman.
Coast-to-coast telegraph service was completed on this date in 1861.
Thursday, October 24th, 1929 — Black Thursday — was the first of the three most significant days of the stock market crash (the others were Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th).
Edward Whitey Ford was the big-game pitcher on the great Yankees teams of the 1950s and early ’60s, earning him the moniker Chairman of the Board. The wily southpaw’s lifetime record of 236-106 gives him the best winning percentage (.690) of any 20th century pitcher. He paced the American League in victories three times, and in ERA and shutouts twice. The 1961 Cy Young Award winner still holds many World Series records, including 10 wins and 94 strikeouts, once pitching 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the Fall Classic.
Probably the best-known soul guitarist in the world, Cropper came to prominence in the early ’60s, first with the Mar-Keys (“Last Night”), then as a founding member of Booker T. & the MG’s. A major figure in the Southern soul movement of the ’60s, Cropper made his mark not only as a player and arranger (most notably on classic sides by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett) but as a songwriter as well, co-writing the classic “In the Midnight Hour.”
And Green Onions is the single greatest rock instrumental ever, period (Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Lewis Steinberg, bass; Al Jackson, drums).
M.G.’s stands for the British motor car and not for Memphis Group. Chips Moman of Stax founded the band and named it for his car. Moman had played with Jones in an earlier band, the Triumphs. Stax changed the origin of the M.G.’s story when Moman left the label. Steve Cropper confirmed Moman’s version on Fresh Air in 2007.
Princess Leia and Carrie Fisher
Judy Sheindlin (“Judge Judy”) is 67.
The daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher is 53. That’s Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia.
Ken Watanabe is 50.
Dizzy Gillespie was born on October 21, 1917.
Dizzy Gillespie was one of the principal developers of bop in the early 1940s, and his styles of improvising and trumpet playing were imitated widely in the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, he is one of the most influential players in the history of jazz.
. . .
Early in 1953, someone accidentally fell on Gillespie’s trumpet, which was sitting upright on a trumpet stand, and bent the bell back. Gillespie played it, discovered that he liked the sound, and from that point on had trumpets built for him with the bell pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle. The design is his visual trademark — for more than three decades he was virtually the only major trumpeter in jazz playing such an instrument.
Alfred Nobel was born on this date in 1833. He was the owner of a weapons manufacturer and inventor of dynamite.
Nobel’s enormous legacy — the impetus to leave the prize money now awarded to Nobel laureates — actually stemmed from an event that left him with feelings of great indignation. After his older brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper printed a scathing obituary of Alfred Nobel, who was in fact alive and well. The writer was allegedly confused about who had died, and he used the obituary to write a condemnation of Alfred’s life and work. “Le marchand de la mort est mort (‘The merchant of death is dead’),” the newspaper proclaimed — and also, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
Alfred Nobel read the obituary about himself and was so upset that this was to be his legacy that he rewrote his will to establish a set of prizes celebrating humankind’s greatest achievements.
NewMexiKen’s parents eloped 67 years ago today. She was a high school senior just turned 17. He was a 19-year-old sailor. My grandmother told her new son-in-law she didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him.
… of William Christopher. M.A.S.H.‘s Father Francis Mulcahy is 77.
… of Hall-of-Fame pitcher Juan Marichal, 72.
The pride of both the Dominican Republic and the Giants, Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez won 243 games and lost only 142 over 16 marvelous seasons. The high-kicking right-hander enjoyed six 20-win seasons, hurled a no-hitter in 1963 and was named to nine All-Star teams. The Dominican Dandy twice led the National League in complete games and shutouts, finishing 244 contests during his career, while fanning 2,303 and compiling a 2.89 ERA. After his playing days, Marichal became minister of sports in his homeland.
… of Tom Petty; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 59.
In a sense, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are America’s band. Durable, resourceful, hard-working, likeable and unpretentious, they rank among the most capable and classic rock bands of the last quarter century. They’ve mastered the idiom’s fundamentals and digested its history while stretching themselves creatively and contributing to rock’s legacy. Moreover they are, like such compatriots as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, a people’s band, writing of everyday struggles and frustrations while offering redemption through tough-minded, big-hearted, tuneful songs.
Hall-of-famer Mickey Mantle was born on this date in 1931 and died in 1995.
Mickey Mantle was a star from the start, parlaying a talent for the game and boyish good looks into iconic status. In spite of a series of devastating injuries, Mantle accumulated a long list of impressive accomplishments, finishing his 18-year career with 536 home runs and a .298 batting average. The switch-hitting Commerce Comet won three MVP Awards (1956, ’57, ’62) and a Triple Crown (1956). He contributed to 12 pennants and seven World Series titles in his first 14 seasons while establishing numerous World Series records, including most home runs (18).
Bela Lugosi was born on this date in 1882. The Romanian-born actor (part of Austria-Hungary then) was best known for playing Count Dracula in the 1931 film. Lugosi died in 1956.
… of Bob Strauss, the politico and diplomat. Ambassador Strauss is 91. Once upon a time NewMexiKen’s boss was Bob Strauss Jr.
… of John LeCarre. The author is 78.
… of Peter Max. The artist is 72.
… of John Lithgow. He’s 64. He’s become somewhat a buffoon on TV in the sitcoms and commercials. Makes it hard to remember that he’s twice been nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar — Terms of Endearment and The World According to Garp.
… of Jeannie C. Riley, singer of the hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.” She, too, is 64.
… of Jennifer Holliday. The Tony Award winner is 49.
… of Evander Holyfield, 47.
… of one-time first daughter Amy Carter. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s little girl is 42.
… of academy award nominee for directing Jason Reitman. He’s 32. The nomination was for Juno.
Robert Reed was born on this date in 1932. A fine actor but one who will always be remembered most as the dad on The Brady Bunch. Reed’s best TV role was as Kenneth Preston, son in the excellent early 1960s father-son lawyer drama The Defenders. His father was played by E. G. Marshall. Reed died in 1992.
Winston Hubert McIntosh was born on this date in 1944. A founding member of The Wailers, Peter Tosh also was an international solo star and songwriter. He was shot and killed along with five others by a friend during an argument on September 11, 1987.
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, “Maybellene.” Combined with quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics full of sly insinuations about cars and girls, Berry laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance. The song included a brief but scorching guitar solo built around his trademark double-string licks. Accompanied by long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including Willie Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire—which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven”—is required listening for any serious rock fan and required learning for any serious rock musician.
Arthur Miller, the playwright (The Crucible, Death of a Salesman) and one-time husband of Marilyn Monroe, was born on this date in 1915.
In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken.
Miller used the money he made from All My Sons to buy 400 acres of farmland in Connecticut. In 1948, he moved to Connecticut by himself and spent several months building a 10-by-12-foot cabin by hand. As he sawed the wood and pounded the nails, he thought about the main characters of his next play: a salesman, his wife, and his two sons. He knew how the play would begin, but he wouldn’t let himself start writing until he had finished the cabin. When it was finally completed, he woke up one morning and started writing. He wrote all day, had dinner, and then wrote until he had finished the first act in the middle of the night. When he finally got in bed to go to sleep, he found that his cheeks were wet with tears, and his throat was sore from speaking and shouting the lines of dialogue as he wrote.
The play was Death of a Salesman (1949), about a man named Willy Loman who loses his job and realizes that he doesn’t have much to show for his life’s work. Miller wrote, “For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.”
Margarita Carmen Cansino was born on this date in 1918. That’s her in the photo known by then as Rita Hayworth. She was married five times including Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan (she had a daughter with each of them). That’s Rita in some excerpts from Gilda (1946) below.
Montgomery Clift was born on October 17 in 1920. Clift was nominated for the best actor Oscar three times and supporting actor once. He played Prewitt, the bugler who won’t box, in From Here to Eternity.
It’s also the birthday
… of Jimmy Breslin. The columnist is 79.
… of Margot Kidder. Lois Lane is 61.
… of George Wendt. Norm is 61.
Sam: What’ll you have Normie?
Norm: Well, I’m in a gambling mood Sammy. I’ll take a glass of whatever comes out of that tap.
Sam: Looks like beer, Norm.
Norm: Call me Mister Lucky.
… of country singer Alan Jackson; he’s 51.
… of golfer Ernie Els, 40.
And of Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. He’s 37.
Angela Lansbury is 84 today. Lansbury was 36 when she played 34-year-old Laurence Harvey’s mother in The Manchurian Candidate. For that alone she deserved the Academy Award nomination she received; it was her third supporting actress nomination.
Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass is 82. “Whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history” (from the Nobel press release, 1999).
Suzanne Somers turns 63 today.
Tim Robbins is 51 today. Robbins won a supporting actor Oscar for Mystic River and received a best director nomination for Dead Man Walking. Hard to beat his portrayal of Andy Dufresne, though.
John Mayer is 32 today.
Nobel and Pulitizer Prize winner Eugene O’Neill was born on October 16th in 1888.
Eugene O’Neill was one of the greatest playwrights in American history. Through his experimental and emotionally probing dramas, he addressed the difficulties of human society with a deep psychological complexity. O’Neill’s disdain for the commercial realities of the theater world he was born into led him to produce works of importance and integrity.
John Brown began his famous raid on this date in 1859:
Late on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown and twenty-one armed followers stole into the town of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) as most of its residents slept. The men–among them three free blacks, one freed slave, and one fugitive slave–hoped to spark a rebellion of freed slaves and to lead an “army of emancipation” to overturn the institution of slavery by force. To these ends the insurgents took some sixty prominent locals including Col. Lewis Washington (great-grand nephew of George Washington) as hostages and seized the town’s United States arsenal and its rifle works.
The upper hand which nighttime surprise had afforded the raiders quickly eroded, and by the evening of October 17, the conspirators who were still alive were holed-up in an engine house. In order to be able to distinguish between insurgents and hostages, marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee waited for daylight on October 18 to storm the building.
… of Lee Iacocca. The former Ford executive and Chrysler chairman is 85.
… of Barry McGuire. The rock/folk singer is 74. His “Eve of Destruction” is even closer at hand.
… of Linda Lavin. Television’s “Alice” is 72.
… of Carole Penny Marshall. The actress turned director is 67.
… of Jim Palmer. The baseball hall-of-famer is 64. We don’t see him in those underwear ads as often anymore. Palmer won World Series games in three decades (1966, 1970 and 1971, 1983).
… of Richard Carpenter. Karen’s brother is 63.
… of Emeril Lagasse. The TV chef is 50.
… of Sarah Ferguson. She’s 50.
… of Dominic West, foremost of The Wire, 40.
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith was born 101 years ago today. Galbraith once wrote a speech for President Lyndon Johnson. Galbraith was a very prominent economist and not a speech writer, but he worked diligently on the draft and was impressed with what he produced. It was given to LBJ who, out of respect for the economist, told him personally what he thought. “Ken,” LBJ said. “Writing a speech is a lot like wetting your pants. What feels warm and comforting to you can just seem cold and sticky to everyone else.” Galbraith died in 2006.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was born 92 years ago today. By the time of his death in 2006 Schlesinger had become a celebrity — a person known mostly for being well-known — but he was the winner of two Pulitizer Prizes in history — The Age of Jackson and A Thousand Days.
Before Schlesinger, historians thought of American democracy as the product of an almost mystical frontier or agrarian egalitarianism. The Age of Jackson toppled that interpretation by placing democracy’s origins firmly in the context of the founding generation’s ideas about the few and the many, and by seeing democracy’s expansion as an outcome of struggles between classes, not sections. More than any previous account, Schlesinger’s examined the activities and ideas of obscure, ordinary Americans, as well as towering political leaders. While he identified most of the key political events and changes of the era, Schlesinger also located the origins of modern liberal politics in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, and in their belief, as he wrote, that future challenges “will best be met by a society in which no single group is able to sacrifice democracy and liberty to its interests.”
Mario Puzo was born on October 15th in 1920. The Writer’s Almanac told us this in 2004:
[Puzo is] best known as the author of the novel The Godfather (1969), which was made into a movie in 1972. People had written novels and made movies about the mafia before, but the mafia characters had always been the villains. Puzo was the first person to write about members of the mafia as the sympathetic main characters of a story. The son of Italian immigrants, he started out trying to write serious literary fiction. He published two novels that barely sold any copies. He fell into debt, trying to support his family as a freelance writer. One Christmas Eve, he had a severe gall bladder attack and took a cab to the hospital. When he got out of the cab, he was in so much pain that he fell into the gutter. Lying there, he said to himself, “Here I am, a published writer, and I am dying like a dog.” He vowed that he would devote the rest of his writing life to becoming rich and famous. The Godfather became the best-selling novel of the 1970s, and many critics credit Puzo with inventing the mafia as a serious literary and cinematic subject. He went on to publish many other books, including The Sicilian (1984) and The Last Don (1996), but he always felt that his best book was the last book he wrote before he became a success – The Fortunate Pilgrim (1964), about an ordinary Italian immigrant family.
Puzo died in 1999.
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson was born on October 15, 1872. The 59-year-old president and widower Woodrow Wilson married the 43-year-old widow Mrs. Galt in 1915. (Michael Douglas was 51 and Annette Benning 37 when they played a fictional “first couple” in the 1995 film The American President.)
[President Wilson's] health failed in September 1919; a stroke left him partly paralyzed. His constant attendant, Mrs. Wilson took over many routine duties and details of government. But she did not initiate programs or make major decisions, and she did not try to control the executive branch. She selected matters for her husband’s attention and let everything else go to the heads of departments or remain in abeyance. Her “stewardship,” she called this. And in My Memoir, published in 1939, she stated emphatically that her husband’s doctors had urged this course upon her.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on this date in 1890. His family moved to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892 and he graduated from Abilene High School in 1909.
Eisenhower attended the U.S. Military Academy, class of 1915, the class the stars fell on — of 164 graduates, 59 attained the rank of general, led by Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. Eisenhower never saw combat first hand during his 37 year army career.
Military leadership of the victorious Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice elected him President of the United States. His enormous political success was largely personal, for he was not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb talent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war confrontations with Soviet power around the world and to lead the country to domestic prosperity.
Eisenhower’s gift for inspiring confidence in himself perplexed some analysts because he was not a dashing battlefield general nor a masterly military tactician; apparently what counted most in his generalship also impressed the voters most: an ability to harmonize diverse groups and disparate personalities into a smoothly functioning coalition.
… of John Wooden. The Wizard of Westwood is 99. Ten national championships in 12 years.
Natalie Maines with husband Adrian Pasdar and son Jackson Pasdar
… of former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. Guess he knew what he was talking about because he’s 93 today.
… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds is 82.
… of former Nixon White House Counsel and convicted multiple felon John Dean, 71 today.
… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 70.
… of the judge of Night Court, Harry Anderson, who is 57 today.
… of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. She’s 35.
… of Usher. He’s 31.
Edward Estlin Cummings was born October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We know him as e.e. cummings.
In his verse, Cummings tended to substitute verbs for nouns, he used patently eccentric punctuation, and he disregarded norms of capitalization. But despite unconventional style, he wrote about traditional themes, stuff like love and nature.
my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge–my girl’s tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.
This Kenneth is the third in a line of four Kenneths. The first Kenneth, my eponymous grandfather, was born on this date in 1899.
Sweetie Sofie is six today, a Colorado girl with a seasoning of northern California. That’s her above with her Daddy at the Maroon Bells in August. Below we see Sofie in the art room at school and, on the right, with Coco, her first real puppy. Coco is a Tibetan Terrier; I’m thinking Coco will soon pass Snuggle Puppy as number one.
Sacha Cohen with Isla Fisher and Olive Baron Cohen
Today is the birthday
… of Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is 38. “At first, Kazakh censors wouldn’t let me release this movie because of anti-Semitism. But then they decided that there was just enough.”
… of Margaret Thatcher, 84.
… of Melinda Dillon. That’s the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She’s 70. Dillon was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for that role and for her part in Absence of Malice.
… of Paul Simon. He’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” at 68.
Paul Simon is among the most erudite and daring songsmiths in popular music. After the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel in 1970, Simon embarked on a fruitful solo career that’s been notable for lyrical acuity, impeccable musicianship and stylistic daring. While Simon and Garfunkel worked largely (but not exclusively) in the folk idiom, Simon the solo artist has roamed wherever his muse has taken him – and that has literally meant around the world. His is not so much a conventional career in music as an odyssey of discovery using “intuitive flashes, synaptic leaps and shorthand logic” (in Simon’s own words) to help him on his way.
However, Van Halen bounced back strong following Roth’s departure. The group recruited Sammy Hagar, who sang and played guitar. Hagar had started out with the hard-rock group Montrose and had a highly successful solo career. He fit well with Van Halen, with whom he was more personally compatible than his predecessor. In fact, the newly harmonious group scored its first Number One album with 5150, on which Hagar handles lead vocals.
… of Kate Walsh, 42. And yes, that’s her in the Cadillac ads. “The real question is, when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?”
… of skater Nancy Kerrigan. She’s 40.
The woman known as Molly Pitcher was born on October 13, 1754.
An Artillery wife, Mary Hays McCauly (better known as Molly Pitcher) shared the rigors of Valley Forge with her husband, William Hays. Her actions during the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 became legendary. That day at Monmouth was as hot as Valley Forge was cold. Someone had to cool the hot guns and bathe parched throats with water.
Across that bullet-swept ground, a striped skirt fluttered. Mary Hays McCauly was earning her nickname “Molly Pitcher” by bringing pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water to the exhausted and thirsty men. She also tended to the wounded and once, heaving a crippled Continental soldier up on her strong young back, carried him out of reach of hard-charging Britishers. On her next trip with water, she found her artilleryman husband back with the guns again, replacing a casualty. While she watched, Hays fell wounded. The piece, its crew too depleted to serve it, was about to be withdrawn. Without hesitation, Molly stepped forward and took the rammer staff from her fallen husband’s hands. For the second time on an American battlefield, a woman manned a gun. (The first was Margaret Corbin during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.) Resolutely, she stayed at her post in the face of heavy enemy fire, ably acting as a matross (gunner).
For her heroic role, General Washington himself issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. Thereafter, she was widely hailed as “Sergeant Molly.” A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A sculpture on the battle monument commemorates her courageous deed.
It’s hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum’s piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, “I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.”
Leonard Alfred Schneider was born on this date in 1925. We know him as Lenny Bruce.
On April 1, 1964, four New York City vice squad officers attended Bruce’s performance at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. The officers arrested Bruce and owner Howard Solomon following Bruce’s 10:00 P.M. show. Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh presented a grand jury with a typed partial script of Bruce’s performance including references to Jackie Kennedy trying to “save her ass” after her husband’s assassination, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “nice tits,” sexual intimacy with a chicken, “pissing in the sink,” the Lone Ranger sodomizing Tonto, and St. Paul giving up “fucking” for Lent. The jury indicted Bruce on the obscenity charge. The trial before a three-judge court in New York City that followed stands as a remarkable moment in the history of free speech. Both the prosecution and defense presented parades of well-known witnesses to either denounce Bruce’s performance as the worst sort of gutter humor or celebrate it as a powerful and insightful social commentary. Among the witnesses testifying in support of Bruce were What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, sociologist Herbert Gans, and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. In the end, the censors won. Voting 2 to 1, the court found Bruce guilty of violating New York’s obscenity laws and sentenced him to “four months in the workhouse.”
Jackson Browne is 61, Robert Wuhl is 58. Tony Shalhoub is 56. Guillermo del Toro is 45. Annika Sorenstam is 39. (I saw what may have been her yacht in Michigan. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, she’s rich.)
Today Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan, is 70; Jesse Jackson 68; Chevy Chase 66; Sigourney Weaver 60; and Stephanie Zimbalist 53. Even Matt Damon is 39.
Author R.L. Stine is 66.
When someone asked him how he first knew that Goosebumps was going to be a big success, he said: “I was in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, driving to a bookstore for a book signing. I remember I was stuck in a huge traffic jam and I was really worried I would be late and was growing more and more annoyed at all the traffic. When we finally approached the bookstore, I realized that the traffic jam was caused by all the people who were coming to see me.” For several years in a row in the 1990s, he was voted not just the best-selling children’s author in the country, but the best-selling author. He has written more than 100 books and sold more than 400 million copies.
Frank Herbert, author of Dune, was born on this date in 1920. He died in 1986.
Eddie Rickenbacker was born on this date in 1890.
Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was a man whose delight in turning the tables on seemingly hopeless odds took him to the top in three distinct fields.
In the daredevil pre-World War I days of automobile racing he became one of this country’s leading drivers, although he had a profound dislike for taking unnecessary risks. He had entered the auto industry as a trainee mechanic and made his first mark servicing the cranky machines of that day.
In World War I he became the nation’s “Ace of Aces” as a military aviator despite the fact that he had joined the Army as a sergeant-driver on Gen. John J. Pershing’s staff.
He was named by Gen. William Mitchell to be chief engineering officer of the fledgling Army Air Corps. His transfer to actual combat flying–in which he shot down 22 German planes and four observation balloons–was complicated not only by his being two years over the pilot age limit of 25, but also because he was neither a college man nor a “gentleman” such as then made up the aristocratic fighter squadrons of the air service.
In the highly competitive airline business, Mr. Rickenbacker was the first man to prove that airlines could be made profitable, and then the first to prove that they could be run without a Government subsidy and kept profitable.
Mary Badham is 57 today. You know her as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was nine going-on 10 when they made the film and she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Badham has just five other film and TV credits.
Sherman Alexie was born 43 years ago today on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
He has written many novels, books of poetry, short stories, and screenplays, including The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), Reservation Blues (1995), and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). His most recent books are Face, a book of poems published earlier this year, and War Dances, a book of short stories that just came out this week.
He wrote, “He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”
Number two Sweetie Kiley is 7 today; a California girl, daughter of a California girl. That’s Kiley above enjoying one of her mother Emily’s classic stories. Below she takes the ball downfield last month; on the right just looking pretty at the playground last May.
For six days The Sweeties are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
… of Maya Lin. The designer of the Vietnam Memorial is 50.
… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 87.
… of comedian Bill Dana, born William Szathmary 85 years ago today. He was once a famed Astronaut, José Jiménez.
… of Diane Cilento. Ms. Cilento received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Tom Jones but NewMexiKen liked her best as the spicy, outspoken passenger in Hombre. She’s 76 today.
… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 59. A great book.
“If you write a story today, and you get up tomorrow and start another story, all the expertise that you put into the first story doesn’t transfer over automatically to the second story. You’re always starting at the bottom of the mountain. So you’re always becoming a writer. You’re never really arriving.”
… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official daughter of NewMexiKen, is 37.
… of Kate Winslet. The actress is 34. She’s been nominated for the best actress Oscar three times and the best supporting actress Oscar twice.
… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on October 5th 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.
Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, was born on October 5th in 1829. Arthur became president when Garfield was assassinated.
And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother, born in Laredo, Texas, 82 years ago 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 at Casa NewMexiKen more than 33 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.
… of Gothic author Anne Rice, 68. She is said to have sold 100 million books.
… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 63 today.
… of Alicia Silverstone, probably not as clueless at 33.
John Charles Carter was born on October 4, 1923. As Charlton Heston he won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.
It’s 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.
Frederic Remington was born on October 4th in 1861.
With his dynamic representations of cowboys and cavalrymen, bronco busters and braves, 19th-century artist Frederic Remington created a mythic image of the American West that continues to inspire America today. His technical ability to reproduce the physical beauty of the Western landscape made him a sought-after illustrator, but it was his insight into the heroic nature of American settlers that made him great. This painter, sculptor, author, and illustrator, who was so often identified with the American West, surprisingly spent most of his life in the East. More than anything, in fact, it was Remington’s connection with the eastern fantasy of the West, and not a true knowledge of its history and people, that his admirers responded to.
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.
Steve Reich is 73. Let this paragraph from Alex Ross in The New Yorker explain Reich’s compostitions:
In this sense, “Different Trains,” for recorded voices and string quartet, may be Reich’s most staggering achievement, even if “Music for 18” gives the purest pleasure. He wrote the piece in 1988, after recalling cross-country train trips that he had taken as a child. “As a Jew, if I had been in Europe during this period, I would have had to ride very different trains,” he has said. Recordings of his nanny reminiscing about their journeys and of an elderly man named Lawrence Davis recalling his career as a Pullman porter are juxtaposed with the testimonies of three Holocaust survivors. These voices give a picture of the dividedness of twentieth-century experience, of the irreconcilability of American idyll and European horror—and something in Mr. Davis’s weary voice also reminds us that America was never an idyll for all. The hidden melodies of the spoken material generate string writing that is rich in fragmentary modal tunes and gently pulsing rhythms.
The NPR 100 included Reich’s “Drumming” among its “100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.” Here’s that report. (RealPlayer)
Ernest Evans is 68; that’s Chubby Checker. His version of “The Twist” was number one in both 1960 and 1962, though not at my high school where the Carmelite fathers decreed it too impure.
My daddy is sleepin’ and mama ain’t around
Yeah daddy is sleepin’ and
mama ain’t around
We’re gonna twisty twisty twisty
‘Til we turn the house down
Worst lip-syncing ever.
Senator Jeff Bingaman is 66 today.
Roy is 65.
In their three-plus decades in Las Vegas, Siegfried & Roy have performed for more than 25 million people. Through the years, they have seen many changes in the city’s entertainment scene, some of which they were personally responsible for. The illusionists opened the door to family entertainment, setting a standard in stage extravaganzas that cannot be duplicated anywhere in the world.
Lindsey Buckingham is 60. For years I thought Lindsey was Stevie and Stevie was Lindsey.
Keb’ Mo’ is 58.
Dave Winfield is 58.
A true five-tool athlete who never spent a day in the minor leagues, Dave Winfield played 22 seasons, earning 12 All-Star Game selections. At six-feet, six-inches, he was an imposing figure and a durable strongman with the rare ability to combine power and consistency. In tours of duty with six major league teams, Winfield batted .283, hit 465 home runs, and amassed 3,110 hits. He was a seven-time Gold Glove winner and helped lead the Toronto Blue Jays to their first World Championship in 1992.
Dennis Eckersley blazed a unique path to Hall of Fame success. During the first half of his 24-year big league career, Eck won over 150 games primarily as a starter, including a no-hitter in 1977. Over his final 12 years, he saved nearly 400 games, leading his hometown Oakland A’s to four American League West titles and earning both Cy Young and MVP honors in 1992. The only pitcher with 100 saves and 100 complete games, Eckersley dominated opposing batters during a six-year stretch from 1988 to 1993, in which he struck out 458 while walking just 51.
Donna Moss is 40. That’s Janel Moloney of The West Wing.
Gwen Stefani is 40, neither “Hollaback” nor “Girl.”
A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl
(A hollaback girl is a girl who lets boys do whatever, then waits for them to call, to holler back. Originally it meant a cheerleader who echoed the lead cheerleader’s call. The song uses both meanings well.)
John Ross was born on October 3rd in 1790.
He spent his early life trying to design a new government for the Cherokees, based on the U.S. government, with a constitution and three separate but equal branches and democratically elected leaders. He respected the American justice system so much that when the state of Georgia tried to force Cherokees off their land, John Ross chose not to go to war, but instead took Georgia to court. It was the first time that an Indian tribe had ever sued the U.S. over treaty rights, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case was decided in 1832, and Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in his opinion that the state of Georgia did not have jurisdiction over Cherokees and therefore could not force the Cherokees to leave their land. But President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the decision. He said, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
Six years later, 15,000 Cherokees were forced out of their homes at gunpoint by American soldiers, gathered together in camps and then forced to walk to the new “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi, an event that became known as The Trail of Tears. The camps had horrible hygienic conditions, and an epidemic of dysentery killed an estimated 8,000 Cherokees, including John Ross’s wife.
Emily Post was born on October 3rd in 1873, thank you very much.
She taught as the basis of all correct deportment that “no one should do anything that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others.” Thousands found their social problems solved by her simple counsels. Her name became synonymous with good manners.
Mrs. Post’s advice was varied. She gave suggestions about how to inculcate good manners in an active 7-year-old boy and she could and did answer complicated questions about the proper way to address titled persons of Europe.
But for the most part she advised the debutante, the confused suitor and the newly married couple who wished to establish themselves in good relations with the world about them. She always avoided giving lonelyhearts advice and never suggested ways to capture a husband or wife, although many young persons found courtship easier because of what she said.
George Bancroft was born on October 3, 1800. As Secretary of the Navy, Bancroft initiated the creation of the United States Naval Academy in 1846. A historian even more than a politician, Bancroft wrote one of the first great histories of the U.S., the multi-volume History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.
Playwright and director Moss Hart was born on October 24th in 1904.
Hugh Jackman is 41 today.
