June 11th

Two-time Oscar nominee Gene Wilder is 74 today. Wilder was nominated for supporting actor for The Producers and as a co-writer with Mel Brooks for Young Frankenstein.

Frank Beard is 58 today. That’s him with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Frank Beard is the one without a beard.

Joe Montana is 51.

Hugh Laurie is 48.

William Styron was born on June 11th in 1925. This from American Masters:

After leaving the service, [Styron] moved to New York, where he supported his fledgling writing career working at McGraw-Hill Publishing. He also began taking classes with Hiram Haydn at the New School for Social Research. With guidance and encouragement from Haydn, Styron made his stunning debut at the age of twenty-six with LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS (1951). This novel launched his career and earned him the American Academy’s Prix de Rome. Told under the shadow of the Hiroshima bombing, LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS charts the tragic descent into suicide of a young woman raised in a troubled Virginia family.

He followed LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS with THE LONG MARCH (1957), SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE (1960), and one of his most famous novels, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER (1967). Published at the height of the civil rights movement, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER is told from the point of view of the historical figure who led a disastrous and bloody slave insurrection which set the stage for the Civil War. Winning a Pulitzer Prize, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER was both praised as a brave look into a rarely represented life, and maligned for what many saw as a clichéd conception of a black man.

Styron’s next novel did not appear for more than ten years. The tragedy of SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1979) is played out between a young Virginia writer and a Polish Holocaust survivor in an urban Jewish enclave of Brooklyn. It takes place during the aftermath of World War II, an era Styron describes as “a nightmarish Sargasso Sea of guilt and apprehensions.” In SOPHIE’S CHOICE, Styron weaves a fictional tale, profound in its engagement, with major recent historical events. Made into a popular movie starring Meryl Streep, SOPHIE’S CHOICE returned Styron to the popular eye as both a controversial personality and a major writer.

Styron’s compelling Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (1990) describes his crippling, nearly suicidal depression at age 60. Styron died last November.

Vince Lombardi was born on June 11 in 1913. Lombardi is the legendary football coach. You know — the one the Super Bowl trophy is named for.

Some Lombardisms:

• “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?”
• “If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
• “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.”
• “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

Vince Lombardi died in 1970 at age 57.

Jeanette Rankin…was born on this date in 1880 on a ranch near Missoula, Montana. In 1916, Rankin was elected the first woman member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was not re-elected in 1918, after voting against entry in the First World War, but was returned to Congress for one term in 1940. In 1941, she cast the sole vote in Congress against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan. Jeanette Rankin was a social worker and a lobbyist for peace and women’s rights. She died just before her 93rd birthday in 1973. She is one of the two Montanans honored in The National Statuary Hall Collection of the U.S. Capitol. Read Rankin’s obituary from The New York Times.

Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11th six years ago for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Dig him up and do it again.