Robert Duvall was born in San Diego 78 years ago today. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore, Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.
Walter F. Mondale is 81.
Umberto Eco is 77 today.
Eco had never written any fiction, but the idea intrigued him, so he told the publisher that he would work on something. He got the idea of a murder mystery set in the Middle Ages, and he wrote about a Franciscan friar who stumbles upon a series of interrelated deaths in the Italian abbey he is visiting. He filled the book with the history of the 14th century, as well as philosophy and theology. He also used every trick he’d ever learned from studying detective novels and spy movies to create his protagonist, William of Baskerville.
When Eco finished the novel, titled The Name of the Rose, he thought that his publishers were being way too optimistic when they ordered 30,000 copies to be printed. But when it came out in 1980, The Name of the Rose sold 2 million copies.
Charlie Rose is 67 today.
Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles 63 years ago today. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977. She has had three other Oscar nominations. She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.
Marilyn Manson is 40.
January Jones is 31 today.
Oddly, one of my favorite roles with Duval was as Hub in Second-hand Lions.
An amazingly under-rated film.
Of course, not much blows up; that pulls it down.
Umberto Eco – a name more Americans should know!
The Name of the Rose was outstanding, and much was lost in the transition to film – Read this book!
And then go read Foucault’s Pendulum and see what Dan Brown’s stupid book should have been! A wonderful yet tightly paced romp through roughly the same period, with the benefit of much better scholarship – Eco actually knew his subject. In the mix is almost every conspiracy theory you have and haven’t heard.
And then stop reading Eco, those are his only mysteries and after that things get strange.