August Twoth

Eight-time Oscar nominee for best actor, Peter O’Toole is 76 today.

Director-writer-producer Wes Craven is 69.

Kathy Lennon of the Lennon Sisters is 65.

Eddie Munster, aka actor Butch Patrick, is 55.

Emmy-winner, for Angels in America, and Weeds star Mary Louise Parker is 44 today. Parker played Amy Gardner on West Wing.

Actress Myrna Loy was born on this date in 1905. IMDB has her listed for an incredible 138 roles, beginning with silent films when she was the femme fatale, but more famously as the witty, urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies. NewMexiKen liked her in The Best Years of Our Lives, a film everyone should see. It won seven Academy Awards in 1946.

Author James Baldwin was born on this date in 1924.

After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1955) and GIOVANNI’S ROOM (1956). Dealing with taboo themes in both books (homosexuality and interracial relationships, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and psychologically penetrating literature. (American Masters | PBS)

James Butler Hickok was killed while playing poker in Deadwood 131 years ago today. American Heritage has An Interview with Jeff Morey, an expert on Wild Bill and the frontier.