Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published on this date in 1951. It’s sold about 60 million copies since.
Major John Glenn, USMC, set a transcontinental (Los Angeles to New York) speed record of 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds on this date in 1957. Average speed: 723 mph.
Will Ferrell is 43 today; Barry Sanders is 42. And Phoebe Cates is 47.
Two Hollywood greats, Ruby Catherine Stevens and Virginia Katherine McMath were born on July 16th.
We know Stevens better as Barbara Stanwyck, born in 1907, she was a four time best actress Oscar nominee. Anthony Lane wrote an excellent review of Stanwyck’s work last year for The New Yorker.
And we know McMath better as Ginger Rogers, born in 1911, and an Oscar winner for best actress for Kitty Foyle. This from the abstract of a 1995 New Yorker item by Arlene Croce about Rogers.
Ginger Rogers was a star because she was unique and representative at the same time; she was complicatedly iconographic. Her very name tells us all we need to know. First of all, it’s euphonious (those three soft “g”s), and then what the first name specifies–something delicious–the last name, a half rhyme, pluralizes.
Apollo 11 left Florida for the moon on this date in 1969.