Today is the birthday
… of Gena Rowlands. She’s 79. Miss Rowlands has been nominated for the best actress Oscar twice — A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980).
… of Salman Rushdie. He’s 62.
He resurrected a minor character from a novel that he had abandoned, a character born at the midnight moment of India’s independence. He placed this character, Saleem Sinai, at the center of his new work. He said, “Then Saleem, ever a striver for meaning, suggested to me that the whole of modern Indian history happened as it did because of him; that history, the life of his nation-twin, was somehow all his fault.”
Rushdie returned to England out of money. He got his copywriting job back on a part-time basis, working two or three days a week, splitting the job with another aspiring writer …
After he completed the manuscript for Midnight’s Children in 1979 and sent it to his editor, he learned that the first reader had reported after reading the thick manuscript: “The author should concentrate on short stories until he has mastered the novel form.” But the second reader was more enthusiastic, and the book was published in 1981 to great acclaim. It won the Booker Prize and marked Rushdie as one of the most important fiction writers of his generation.
The above excerpted from The Writer’s Almanac, which has much more. Midnight’s Children is on those book lists we’ve been discussing.
… of Phylicia Rashad. Clair Hanks Huxtable is 61. (Bill Cosby, Dr. Huxtable, is 11 years older.)
… of Kathleen Turner. She’s 55. Miss Turner was nominated for the best actress Oscar for Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).
… of Paula Abdul. She’s 47. A former Lakers cheerleader, Miss Abdul had six number one records 1988-1991. She topped the charts for 15 weeks altogether.
Lou Gehrig was born on June 19 in 1903.
Lou Gehrig teamed with Babe Ruth to form baseball’s most devastating hitting tandem ever. “The Iron Horse” had 13 consecutive seasons with both 100 runs scored and 100 RBI, averaging 139 runs and 148 RBI; set an American League mark with 184 RBI in 1931; hit a record 23 grand slams; and won the 1934 Triple Crown. His .361 batting average in seven World Series led the Yankees to six titles. A true gentleman and a tragic figure, Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak ended at 2,130 when he was felled by a disease that later carried his own name.
Gehrig died in 1941. As Christopher Moltisanti of The Sopranos puts it, “You ever think what a coincidence it is that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig’s disease?”
Moses Horwitz was born on June 19th 112 years ago. That’s the boss stooge, Moe Howard. “I’ll squeeze the cider out of your Adam’s apple.”
The Statue of Liberty arrived at Bedloe’s Island in New York harbor on June 19, 1885.
The statue is constructed of hand-shaped copper sheets, assembled on a framework of steel supports designed by engineers Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. For transit to America, the figure was broken down into 350 separate pieces and packed in 214 crates. The Statue of Liberty sits within the star-shaped walls of the former Fort Wood, rising to a height of 305 feet on a pedestal designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.
Gena Rowlands and her new husband once bought me a glass of Veuve Clicquot. It was one of the most pleasurable moments of my life. What a nice and gracious lady. Her husband was a nice guy too, but I just cannot remember his name. No reference to him online other than photos.
Must be tough for him to follow John Cassavetes.
I had breakfast with Ed Asner on that cruise, what an interesting guy. He had a great pair of Puma shoes which he was real proud of. That is where our conversation began.