. . . of Doris Day. She’s 87 today. Day had three number one hits on her own and was the vocalist with Les Brown for one of the great hits of all-time, “Sentimental Journey.” Her most famous other single, “What Ever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” was a number two song in 1956. Day was nominated for the best actress Oscar for Pillow Talk.
. . . of primatologist Jane Goodall. She’s 76.
. . . of Marsha Mason; she’s 68. Mason is a four-time Oscar nominee for best actress — Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two and Only When I Laugh.
. . . of Wayne Newton and Billy Joe Royal. They’re both 68. Each had exactly one top ten hit — Newton with “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (reached number 4 in 1972) and Royal with “Down in the Boondocks” (reached number 9 in 1965). Of the two, Newton has surely done the better job of hanging on.
. . . of Tony Orlando, 66. Orlando had three number one hits in the early 70s: “Knock Three Times” as Dawn, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Rond the Ole Oak Tree” as Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando, and “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” as Tony Orlando and Dawn.
. . . of Richard Thompson. He’s 61 and he’s never had a top ten hit, however:
One of Britain’s most gifted guitarists and songwriters; Richard has been the mainstay of the folk rock scene for over 30 years. Whatever the size of his record sales, he has a reputation among his peers that is second to none. (BBC – Music)
. . . of Alec Baldwin. He’s 52. Baldwin was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for Cooler.
. . . of David Hyde Pierce. Frasier Crane’s brother Niles is 51.
. . . of Eddie Murphy. He’s 49. Murphy was 19 when he started with “Saturday Night Live.” Murphy was nominated recently for the best supporting actor Oscar.
Virgil “Gus” Grissom was born on this date in 1926. Grissom was the second American in space, a July 1961 suborbital flight that followed Alan Shepard’s similar flight and preceded John Glenn’s orbiting the earth in 1962. Grissom’s spacecraft sank upon landing, but after years of analysis, experts conceded it had not been due to any action or failure on Grissom’s part. Grissom flew in the first manned Gemini flight in 1965 — he was the first American to fly into space twice. He named the craft Molly Brown (as in unsinkable). When NASA objected, he renamed it Titanic. NASA relented but never used the name and stopped naming spacecraft for a time. Grissom died in the Apollo I fire in 1967.
The actor Leslie Howard was born on this date in 1893. Most famous as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, Howard was nominated for two best acting Oscars earlier in his career. Wilkes’ was killed when his plane was shot down by German fighters during World War II.