Robert Blake is 78 today.
Frankie Avalon is 71. (Annette will be 69 next month.)
Otis Sistrunk is 65. He played for the Oakland Raiders, 1972-1978. From Wikipedia:
During a Monday Night Football telecast, a television camera beamed a sideline shot of the 6’5″, 265-pound Sistrunk’s steaming bald head to the nation. That, along with his lack of a college education resulting in the team program listing Sistrunk’s academic background as “U.S. Mars” (short for U.S. Marines), prompted ABC commentator and ex-NFL player Alex Karras to suggest that the extraterrestrial-looking Sistrunk’s alma mater was the “University of Mars.”
Coach Rick Pitino is 59.
Baseball hall-of-famer Ryne Sandberg is 52.
Dazzling defensive flair and a tremendous knack for power enabled Ryne Sandberg to join the list of greats at second base. As the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1984, Sandberg led the Chicago Cubs to their first postseason appearance since 1945. His amazing range and strong, accurate throwing arm, led to nine consecutive Gold Glove Awards at the keystone position, and helped him pace NL second basemen in assists seven times, and in fielding average and total chances four times each. With the bat, Sandberg launched 282 career home runs, and in 1990 he become the first second baseman since Rogers Hornsby in 1922 to hit 40 homers in a single-season.
James Gandolfini is 50.
Jada Pinkett Smith is 40.
Lance Armstrong is 40 today, too. Or so he says.
Greta Garbo was born on September 18, 1905. This is from her New York Times obituary in 1990:
The finest element in a Garbo film was Garbo. She invariably played a disillusioned woman of the world who falls hopelessly and giddily in love. Tragedy is often imminent, and her tarnished-lady roles usually required her to die or otherwise give up her lover. No one could suffer like Garbo.
Mysterious and aloof, she appealed to both men and women, and she exerted a major influence on women’s fashions, hair styles and makeup. On screen and off, she was a remote figure of loveliness.
Garbo’s career spanned only 19 years. In 1941, at the age of 36, she made the last of her 27 movies, a slight comedy called ”Two Faced Woman.” She went into what was to be temporary retirement, but she never returned to the screen.
Actor Jack Warden was born on this date in 1920. Warden was nominated twice for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar — for Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait. NewMexiKen liked him best as juror # 7 in 12 Angry Men.
The first edition of The New York Times was published 160 years ago today (1851).
President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol on September 18 in 1793.