Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Audrey Meadows, is 86.
Whitey Ford is 82.
Edward Whitey Ford was the big-game pitcher on the great Yankees teams of the 1950s and early ’60s, earning him the moniker Chairman of the Board. The wily southpaw’s lifetime record of 236-106 gives him the best winning percentage (.690) of any 20th century pitcher. He paced the American League in victories three times, and in ERA and shutouts twice. The 1961 Cy Young Award winner still holds many World Series records, including 10 wins and 94 strikeouts, once pitching 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the Fall Classic.
Steve Cropper is 69. According to the All Music Guide:
Probably the best-known soul guitarist in the world, Cropper came to prominence in the early ’60s, first with the Mar-Keys (“Last Night”), then as a founding member of Booker T. & the MG’s. A major figure in the Southern soul movement of the ’60s, Cropper made his mark not only as a player and arranger (most notably on classic sides by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett) but as a songwriter as well, co-writing the classic “In the Midnight Hour.”
And Green Onions is the single greatest rock instrumental ever, period (Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Lewis Steinberg, bass; Al Jackson, drums).
M.G.’s stands for the British motor car and not for Memphis Group. Chips Moman of Stax founded the band and named it for his car. Moman had played with Jones in an earlier band, the Triumphs. Stax changed the origin of the M.G.’s story when Moman left the label. Steve Cropper confirmed Moman’s version on Fresh Air in 2007.
Judy Sheindlin (“Judge Judy”) is 68.
The daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher is 54. That’s Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia, and once Mrs. Paul Simon.
Ken Watanabe is 51.
One of the Kardashian sisters — and does it really matter which one — is 30 today.
Dizzy Gillespie was born on October 21, 1917.
Dizzy Gillespie was one of the principal developers of bop in the early 1940s, and his styles of improvising and trumpet playing were imitated widely in the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, he is one of the most influential players in the history of jazz.
. . .Early in 1953, someone accidentally fell on Gillespie’s trumpet, which was sitting upright on a trumpet stand, and bent the bell back. Gillespie played it, discovered that he liked the sound, and from that point on had trumpets built for him with the bell pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle. The design is his visual trademark — for more than three decades he was virtually the only major trumpeter in jazz playing such an instrument.
Alfred Nobel was born on this date in 1833. He was the owner of a weapons manufacturer and inventor of dynamite.
Nobel’s enormous legacy — the impetus to leave the prize money now awarded to Nobel laureates — actually stemmed from an event that left him with feelings of great indignation. After his older brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper printed a scathing obituary of Alfred Nobel, who was in fact alive and well. The writer was allegedly confused about who had died, and he used the obituary to write a condemnation of Alfred’s life and work. “Le marchand de la mort est mort (‘The merchant of death is dead’),” the newspaper proclaimed — and also, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
Alfred Nobel read the obituary about himself and was so upset that this was to be his legacy that he rewrote his will to establish a set of prizes celebrating humankind’s greatest achievements.
That great sixth game of the World Series where Carlton Fisk hit the winning home run in the 12th to give the Red Sox a 7-6 victory over the Reds was 35 years ago tonight.