The linguist and author Deborah Tannen is 62. The Writer’s Almanac reports that Deborah Tannen has said, “Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.”
Oscar nominee Liam Neeson is 55.
Author Louise Erdrich is 53.
Her father was of German descent, her mother a Chippewa Indian. She grew up in North Dakota, where her parents were both teachers at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school.
She studied creative writing at Dartmouth. After college, she decided not to go into teaching as she had planned. Instead, she wrote poetry, and supported herself hoeing sugar beets, picking cucumbers, babysitting, life guarding, selling fried chicken, waitressing and short order cooking. She was even once a girl with a flag at a construction site on the highway.
She switched from poetry to fiction. One of her first short stories began to grow in her mind and became her first novel Love Medicine, about two Indian families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. She created those two families and then went on to write several more novels about them and their imaginary reservation in North Dakota, including The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, Tracks, and others.
Prince Rogers Nelson is 49.
Allen Iverson is 32.
Jessica Tandy was born on this date in 1909. Tandy won an Oscar (at age 81 for Driving Miss Daisy), a Tony, an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She was the mother who didn’t like Tippi Hedren much in The Birds.
Dino Paul Crocetti was born on June 7th 90 years ago today. We know him as Dean Martin.