Author: NewMexiKen

Dennis Hopper is 72.

Sugar Ray Leonard is 52, as is Bob Saget.

Jim Nance is 49.

Enya is 47.

Jane Parker (Tarzan’s Jane) and Mia Farrow’s mom was born on this date in 1911. That’s actress Maureen O’Sullivan.

One of the brightest of ingenues, the actress appeared in more than 60 films, from ”Tugboat Annie” to ”Pride and Prejudice,” starring with everyone from Robert Taylor to the Marx Brothers. But she was always identified with the lovely, legendary Jane, teaching the niceties of civilization and romance to the yowling Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s King of the Jungle. It was a notable pairing of opposites.

Her other movie successes included ”The Thin Man,” ”The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” Greta Garbo’s ”Anna Karenina,” ”A Day at the Races,” ”A Yank at Oxford,” ”The Crowd Roars” and ”David Copperfield” (with W. C. Fields).

The New York Times

Today we acknowledge the birthdays

… of George Lucas. He’s 64. Lucas has twice received a writing Oscar nomination and a directing nomination for the same film (American Graffiti and Star Wars). He’s won none. He did get that Thalberg Award thingy though.

… of David Byrne. He’s 56. Byrne is an inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads. An excerpt:

Among the most adventuresome bands in rock history, the Talking Heads drew from funk, minimalism, and African and Brazilian music in promulgating a new sound that was both visionary and visceral. They were invariably challenging and inventive, using infectious rhythms as a form of sorcery to introduce their ever-expanding audience to exotic influences from abroad that they might otherwise have never heard. In so doing, they helped pave the way – along with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno – for the “world music” phenomenon of the Eighties and beyond.

… of Cate Blanchett. She’s 39. Nominated for best actress twice and supporting actress three times, Ms. Blanchett won the supporting actress Oscar for playing an even more famous redhead, Kate Hepburn, in The Aviator.

… of Sofia Coppola. She’s 37. Ms. Coppola was nominated for three Oscars for Lost in Translation — best picture, best director and best original screenplay. She won for the writing.

Frank Sinatra died on this date in 1998. He probably died because it was also the date of the last Seinfeld episode and what was the point of going on.