James Arness — Marshall Dillon — is 88.
Brent Musburger is 72.
Levon Helm of The Band is 71.
The Band, more than any other group, put rock and roll back in touch with its roots. With their ageless songs and solid grasp of musical idioms, the Band reached across the decades, making connections for a generation that was, as an era of violent cultural schisms wound down, in desperate search of them. They projected a sense of community in the turbulent late Sixties and early Seventies – a time when the fabric of community in the United States was fraying. Guitarist Robbie Robertson drew from history in his evocative, cinematic story-songs, and the vocal triumvirate of bassist Rick Danko, drummer Levon Helm and keyboardist Richard Manuel joined in rustic harmony and traded lines in rich, conversational exchanges. Multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson provided musical coloration in period styles that evoked everything from rural carnivals of the early 20th century to rock and roll revues of the Fifties.
Stevie Nicks is 63 today.
Finally, the platinum edition of Fleetwood Mac came together in 1975 with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The San Francisco duo had previously cut an album together as Buckingham-Nicks. Drummer Fleetwood heard a tape of theirs at a studio he was auditioning, and the pair were drafted into the group without so much as a formal audition. This lineup proved far and away to be Fleetwood Mac’s most durable and successful. In addition to the most solid rhythm section in rock, this classic lineup contained strong vocalists and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie. Male and female points of view were offered with unusual candor on the watershed albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977).
Sally K. Ride is 60. Ride Sally Ride.
Helena Bonham Carter is 45.
Lenny Kravitz is 47.
Shakespeare is 41. That’s actor Joseph Fiennes.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison 104 years ago today. (His middle name was later changed to Mitchell so his parents could name their next son Robert.)
In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America’s greatest native art forms, the western.
The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as “Stagecoach” and “Red River.” He won an Oscar as best actor for another western, “True Grit,” in 1969. Yet some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as “The Quiet Man” and “The Long Voyage Home.”
In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism.
The New York Times [Obituary, 1979]
Photographer Dorothea Lange was born on May 26th in 1895. That’s her most famous photo, “Migrant Mother,” taken in 1936.
Dancer Isadora Duncan was born on this date in 1877.
Engineer, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Roebling was born on May 26th 1837. And, according to the Smithsonian Civil War Studies :
From a hot air balloon on a sunny late-June morning in 1863, Roebling was the first to spy Robert E. Lee’s army heading toward Gettysburg. During the ensuing battle, when General Warren ordered that Little Round Top be reinforced, Roebling helped place the first cannon, which effectively defended the site and directly contributed to the subsequent Union victory. He was awarded three brevets for gallant conduct and ended his military career as a Colonel.
Roebling’s wife Emily was the younger sister of General Gouverneur K. Warren, hero of Gettysburg. Roebling served on Warren’s staff.