February 25th

Larry Gelbart, the writer and producer of M*A*S*H, is 80 today.

CBS news veteran Bob Schieffer is 71.

Karen Grassle, the mom on Little House on the Prairie, is 64.

It’s the birthday of Debby, official younger sister of NewMexiKen. Debby is a lecturer and author of children’s books, newly minted cowgirl, and middle school recess wrangler. Happy birthday Debby.

John Foster Dulles was born on this date in 1888. Dulles was Secretary of State under Eisenhower from 1953 until April 1959. He is the person for whom Washington Dulles International Airport is named.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on this date in 1841. Click image for larger version of Renoir’s painting “The Picture Book.”

Enrico Caruso was born in Naples on this date in 1873. The Writer’s Almanac had this to say about Caruso a few years back:

It’s the birthday of tenor Enrico Caruso, born in Naples, Italy (1873), the eighteenth of twenty-one children and the first to survive past infancy. He was determined to become a singer, but several teachers told him he had neither voice nor talent. He finally persuaded one teacher to let him observe other students’ lessons; eventually he was given his own private classes. Legend has it that when the young tenor was asked to sing as Rodolfo in La Bohème, he first had to get permission from Puccini himself. After listening to Caruso sing a few pages, Puccini allegedly leapt from his chair and cried, “Who sent you to me? God!?!” In 1902, Caruso made his debut in Rigoletto at London’s Covent Garden, and the following year at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was engaged there continually for the next eighteen years. Caruso has often been called the greatest tenor of the twentieth century, known for his brilliant high notes and his dramatic interpretations. He was immensely popular, partly because he was the first major tenor to be recorded on gramophone records.

NewMexiKen had this about Caruso in 2004.