May 9th

Today is the birthday

… of Mike Wallace; 93 today. 60 Minutes is the only place where the average age is higher than that of the College of Cardinals.

… of Glenda Jackson; 75 today. Ms. Jackson has four Oscar nominations, two of them winners for best actress — Women In Love and A Touch of Class.

… of Albert Finney; he’s 75 as well. Finney has been nominated for an Oscar five times, but no wins.

… of Sonny Curtis; 74 today. Curtis started out with Buddy Holly but earned fame as a songwriter — I Fought the Law and the Law Won. It’s Curtis who wrote — and who sang — Love Is All Around. You know, the theme song from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to fake it.
You can have the town, why don’t you take it.
You’re gonna make it after all

… of James L. Brooks; he’s 71. Brooks won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay for Terms of Endearment. He received nominations in various categories for Broadcast News, Jerry Maguire and As Good as It Gets, too. For my money, I like his work as executive producer of Mary Tyler Moore and, of course, The Simpsons.

… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Richie Furay; 67 today. Furay, Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Stephen Stills and Neil Young were the founders of Buffalo Springfield.

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

… of Candace Bergen; she’s 65. Ms. Bergen was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1980 for Starting Over.

… of Billy Joel; 62 today. If you need a couple notes of Billy Joel, click here.

… of Kermit (yeah, that Kermit). He’s 56 today. Maybe it is easy being green. The original Kermit was made from a coat belonging to Jim Henson’s mother.

… of Tony Gwynn, 51.

A star baseball and basketball player in college, Tony Gwynn opted for the diamond and fashioned a stellar 20-year career with the San Diego Padres. Gwynn’s mastery of slapping the ball between the third baseman and shortstop, what the lefty called the “5.5 hole,” propelled him to 3,141 career hits, a lifetime .338 batting average and eight batting crowns, an NL record he shares with Honus Wagner. A true student of hitting, Gwynn was an early advocate of using videotape to study his swing, while his five outfield Gold Glove Awards, 319 career stolen bases and 15 All-Star Game selections attest to his superior all-around play.

Baseball Hall of Fame

John Brown was born on May 9th in 1800. The American Experience has a good biographical essay on Brown.

He has been called a saint, a fanatic, and a cold-blooded murderer. The debate over his memory, his motives, about the true nature of the man, continues to stir passionate debate. It is said that John Brown was the spark that started the Civil War. Truly, he marked the end of compromise over the issue of slavery, and it was not long after his death that John Brown’s war became the nation’s war.

J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie was born in Scotland on May 9th in 1860. His Peter Pan first appeared in 1902 in a book of children’s stories, The Little White Bird. In 1904 Barrie produced the play “Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.”

And on May 9th, 1950:

A fire crew fighting the Capitan Gap fire in Lincoln National Forest rescues a bear cub clinging to a tree. The burned animal later became known as Smokey Bear and the cub grew into a national symbol for the prevention of forest fires. The bear lived on and later died of natural causes and his body was returned from Washington, D.C., to be buried in the same area of the Lincoln fire.

New Mexico Magazine