In addition to Kiley, 8 today, it’s the birthday of these fine Libras.
Mary Badham is 58 today. You know her as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was nine going-on 10 when they made the film and she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Badham has just five other film and TV credits.
Desmond Tutu is 79.
John Mellencamp is 59.
Yo-Yo Ma is 55.
Simon Cowell is 51.
Sherman Alexie was born 44 years ago today on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
He has written many novels, books of poetry, short stories, and screenplays, including The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), Reservation Blues (1995), and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). His most recent books are Face, a book of poems published earlier this year, and War Dances, a book of short stories that just came out this week.
He wrote, “He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”
Alexie’s books and stories are good stuff, and the movie Alexie adapted from Lone Ranger and Tonto, Smoke Signals, is delightful.
Andy Devine was born in Flagstaff, Arizona, 105 years ago today. He grew up in Kingman, and is still their favorite son. Devine and his unusual voice were in more than 400 films, on radio and TV. I always liked Andy, but Smilin’ Ed McConnell was definitely better on Saturdays with Froggy the Gremlin and Buster Brown shoes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ5CPCvf6aA
June Allyson was born Eleanor Geisman in The Bronx, New York, on October 7, 1917.
The American poet James Whitcomb Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana, on October 7th in 1849. RIley was quite successful — as poets go — much of his income from his reading tours. He is generally regarded as one of the founders of midwestern America cultural identity.
The labor leader and martyr Joe Hill was born Joel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, on this date in 1979. Hill was executed for murder he most likely didn’t commit in Utah in 1915 — reportedly his last word before the firing squad shot, was “Fire.” The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor has an informative narrative about Hill.