Author: NewMexiKen

. . . of Olivia Hussey. Sixteen when she played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, she’s 56 today.

. . . of Nick Hornby. He’s 50.

The book was called Fever Pitch (1992), and it came out at a time when football fans were generally looked down upon by the British upper class. But the book became something of a phenomenon in Great Britain, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, making it one of the best-selling books about sport ever published in the English language. Part of what made the book so popular was that it captured the way people can rely on a sports team to give their lives drama and meaning. Hornby wrote, “The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.”

The Writer’s Almanac

. . . of Liz Phair. She’s 40.

. . . of Jennifer Garner. She’s 35.

J. P. Morgan was born on this date in 1837.

[Morgan] began his career in 1857 as an accountant, and worked for several New York banking firms until he became a partner in Drexel, Morgan and Company in 1871, which was reorganized as J.P. Morgan and Company in 1895. Described as a coldly rational man, Morgan began reorganizing railroads in 1885, becoming a board member and gaining control of large amounts of stock of many of the rail companies he helped restructure. In 1896, Morgan embarked on consolidations in the electric, steel (creating U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, in 1901), and agricultural equipment manufacturing industries. By the early 1900s, Morgan was the main force behind the Trusts, controlling virtually all the basic American industries. He then looked to the financial and insurance industries, in which his banking firm also achieved a concentration of control.

The American Experience

Nikita Khrushchev was born on this date in in 1894. Khrushchev was Soviet Premier from 1954-1964. The New York Times has posted its lengthy obituary from 1971. One of the more infamous moments at the United Nations took place when Khrushchev visited there in 1960 and reportedly banged his shoe on the desk in a protest. Or maybe he didn’t. Read what NewMexiKen reported about this incident in 2004.

Thornton Wilder was born on this date in 1897.

As a boy, he lived near a university theater where they performed Greek dramas, and his mother let him participate as a member of the chorus. He never forgot the experience, and he decided then that he would try to write for the theater someday. He got a job at the University of Chicago and began to write a series of experimental one-act plays that used a minimum of scenery and props, and often included an all-knowing character called the Stage Manager. Then, in 1938, he produced the play for which he is best known, Our Town, one of the first major Broadway plays to use almost no stage scenery, so that the audience had to imagine the world in which the characters lived.

Our Town is about the New England village of Grover’s Corners, where the characters George Gibbs and Emily Webb grow up, fall in love at the soda fountain, and get married. When Emily dies in childbirth, she gets to relive the day of her 12th birthday and realizes how little she cherished life while she was alive.

The Writer’s Almanac

William Holden was born on this date in 1918. Holden was nominated three times for the Best Actor Oscar, winning for Stalag 17 in 1954. His other nominations were for Sunset Blvd. and Network. Holden is probably as well known for his portrayal of Hal Carter opposite Kim Novak in Picnic and as the leader of the demolition team intent on destroying Alec Guiness’ Bridge on the River Kwai.

But, most importantly, Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, was born on this date. Happy birthday Emily!

. . . of Pope Benedict XVI, infallible at 80.

. . . of Bobby Vinton, his roses are still red my love at 72.

. . . of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 60.

. . . of Bill Belichick, 55.

. . . of Ellen Barkin, 53.

. . . of Peter Billingsley. Ralphie is 35.

Wilbur Wright was born on this date in 1867. He died of typhoid fever in 1912.

Charlie Chaplin was born on this date in 1889.

In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process — founding his own studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith, and producing, casting, directing, writing, scoring and editing the movies he starred in. In the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly moviegoing was a national habit, Chaplin more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made him the highest-paid actor — possibly the highest paid person — in the world.

TIME 100

Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini on this date in 1924. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.

Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist. For 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s alone, Mancini won five Grammys and two Oscars. Breakfast at Tiffany’s includes the classic “Moon River” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), arguably one of the finest pop songs of the last 50 years. At last count, there were over 1,000 recordings of it. His other notable songs include “Dear Heart,” “Days of Wine and Roses” (one Oscar, two Grammys), and “Charade,” the last two with lyrics by Mercer. He also had a number one record and won a Grammy for Nino Rota’s “Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet.” Among his other notable film scores are The Pink Panther (three Grammys), Hatari! (one Grammy), Victor/Victoria (an Oscar), Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, and 10. His television themes include “Peter Gunn” (two Grammys, recorded by many rock artists), “Mr. Lucky” (two Grammys), “Newhart,” “Remington Steele,” and The Thorn Birds television mini-series.

allmusic

Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born on this date in 1939. We know her as Dusty Springfield. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 1999, just 13 days after she died of breast cancer.

One of the finest pop-soul vocalists ever, Dusty Springfield was blessed with a powerful, smoky voice that ran the emotional gamut from cool sophistication to simmering passion. Over the course of a long, episodic career, she tackled adult pop, Memphis R&B and Motown-style soul, traditional folk and country, and contemporary dance music. She’s been called “one of the five mighty pop divas of the Sixties”-the others being Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Martha Reeves-and no less an authority than Berry Gordy credits her for helping the Motown sound take root in the U.K. Moreover, Springfield forcefully asserted herself as an artist and personality at a time when women were generally not given much leeway in the music industry. In 1964, she became Britain’s most popular female vocalist, and her popularity proved durable, as she enjoyed hits in four successive decades.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame