31 years ago today the Mount St. Helens volcano exploded, killing or hiding 57 people.
Maude’s husband, Walter, is 89. That’s actor Bill Macy, still adding to his credits last year. He was a character named Whiskey Pete on My Name Is Earl a couple of years ago. His name at birth: Wolf Marvin Garber.
Dobie Gillis is 77. That’s actor Dwayne Hickman who played the high school chum of Maynard G. Krebs when he was 25 (and Bob Denver was 24).
Brooks Robinson is 74.
Known as The Human Vacuum Cleaner, Brooks Robinson established a standard of excellence for modern-day third basemen. He played 23 seasons for the Orioles, setting Major League career records for games, putouts, assists, chances, double plays and fielding percentage. A clutch hitter, Robinson totaled 268 career home runs, at one time an American League record for third basemen. Robinson earned the league’s MVP Award in 1964 and the World Series MVP in 1970, when he hit .429 and made a collection of defensive gems.
Reggie Jackson is 65.
Reggie Jackson earned the nickname Mr. October for his World Series heroics with both the A’s and Yankees. In 27 Fall Classic games, he amassed 10 home runs — including four in consecutive at-bats — 24 RBIs and a .357 batting average. As one of the game’s premier power hitters, he blasted 563 career round-trippers. A terrific player in the clutch and an intimidating cleanup hitter, Jackson compiled a lifetime slugging percentage of .490 and earned American League MVP honors in 1973.
U.S. Senator Tom Udall is 63.
George Strait is 59.
Tina Fey is 41.
Frank Capra was born in Bisaquino, Sicily on this date in 1897.
He was the first to win three directorial Oscars — for “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” (1936) and “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938). The motion picture academy also voted the first and third movies the best of the year.
Capra movies were idealistic, sentimental and patriotic. His major films embodied his flair for improvisation and spontaneity, buoyant humor and sympathy for the populist beliefs of the 1930’s.
Generations of moviegoers and television viewers have reveled in the hitch-hiking antics of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night;” in Gary Cooper’s whimsical self-defense of Longfellow Deeds at a hilarious sanity hearing in “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town;” in the impassioned filibuster by James Stewart as an incorruptible Senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” in Mr. Cooper’s battle to prevent a power-crazed industrialist from taking dictatorial control of the country in “Meet John Doe,” and in Mr. Stewart’s salvation by a guardian angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”