… of Jackie Cooper; he’s 84. Cooper’s first appearance in film was in 1929; his last 60 years later. He played Perry White in the Superman films but his real fame was as a child actor, most notably Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934). He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for Skippy in 1931. This is the role where the director got him to cry on camera by telling Jackie (falsely) that his dog had just been run over by a car.
… of Tommy Lee Jones. He’s 60. Jones has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor twice, winning for The Fugitive, but not for JFK. NewMexiKen thought he was best in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Jones and Harvard roommate Al Gore were the inspiration for Oliver Barrett IV in Erich Segal’s best-seller Love Story.
… of Oliver Stone, also 60. Stone has been nominated for seven Oscars and won three — he won for writing for Midnight Express and for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
And humorist Robert Benchley was born on this date in 1889. Last year The Writer’s Almanac wrote:
He started writing humor as a kid in school. Assigned to write an essay about how to do something practical, he wrote one called “How to Embalm a Corpse.” When he was assigned to write about the dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights from the point of view of the United States and Canada, he instead chose to write from the point of view of the fish.
He’s the grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.