Category: Birthdays

Issac Hayes was born on August 20, 1942.

Isaac Hayes is a multi-faceted talent: songwriter, producer, sideman, solo artist, film scorer, actor, rapper and deejay. He has been hugely influential on the rap movement as both a spoken-word pioneer and larger-than-life persona who’s influenced everyone from Barry White to Puff Daddy. Hayes is best known for his soundtrack to Shaft, one of the first and best “blaxploitation” films, and for the song “Theme from ‘Shaft,’” a Top Ten hit. But his varied resume boasts everything from backing up Otis Redding and writing for Sam and Dave and others at Stax Records in the Sixties to serving as the voice of Chef on South Park in the Nineties. At the peak of his popularity in the early Seventies, Hayes devised the character “Black Moses,” based on his public persona. With his shaved head, dark glasses, bulging muscles, gold chains, fur coats and serious, unsmiling demeanor, Hayes came off as both a potent sex symbol and an icon for African-American pride. Moreover, according to Jim Stewart, founder of Stax Records, “Isaac Hayes is one of the main roots of the Memphis Sound.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Hayes died in 2008.

Don King is 80 today.

Ron Paul is 76.

Connie Chung is 65 today.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (as part of Led Zeppelin) Robert Plant is 63.

Al Roker is 57.

Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen is 55 — Nixon, The Crucible, The Contender.

Three-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams is 37 — Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter.

Demi Lovato is 19.

Alan Reed was born as Edward Bergman 104 years ago today. I won’t tell you why he’s famous. Just listen when the man talks in the video. (Fun even if you see the title at the beginning.) No need to listen after the first few seconds.

Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, was born on this date in 1833. Until Jenna or Barbara Bush gets the job, Harrison remains the only grandchild of a president to also be president.

The NFL is 91 today.

The National Football League was the idea of legendary American-Indian Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, player-coach of the Canton Bulldogs, and Leo Lyons, owner of the Rochester Jeffersons, a sandlot football team.

. . .

On August 20, 1920, at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio, the league was formalized, originally as the American Professional Football Conference, initially consisting only of the Ohio League teams, although some of the teams declined participation. One month later, the league was renamed the American Professional Football Association, adding Buffalo and Rochester from the New York league, and Detroit, Hammond, and several other teams from nearby circuits. The eleven founding teams initially struck an agreement over player poaching and the declaration of an end-of-season champion. Thorpe, while still playing for the Bulldogs, was elected president. Only four of the founding teams finished the 1920 schedule and the undefeated Akron Pros claimed the first championship. Membership of the league increased to 22 teams – including more of the New York teams – in 1921, but throughout the 1920s the membership was unstable and the league was not a major national sport. On June 24, 1922, the organization, now headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, changed its title a final time to the National Football League.

History of the National Football League – Wikipedia

The Great Fire of 1910 began on August 20th. It burned over 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana and killed 87 people, 78 of them firefighters. Timothy Egan wrote about the fire in The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America.

Bill Clinton is 65 today.

It’s also the birthday

… of Ginger Baker of Cream and Blind Faith. Peter Edward Baker, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, is 72. Rolling Stone says Baker is the third greatest rock drummer ever (after Neil Peart of Rush and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin).

Even if you missed growing up in the 1960s, you’re bound to have heard Ginger Baker’s explosive drumming with the rock bands Cream and Blind Faith. In both beat combos, Baker was an amazing sight.

His kit featured two bass drums, tuned slightly differently, so that he could play counter-rhythms with both feet, while his hands belaboured the snare, toms and cymbals. His arms flailed; his wild red hair shook like a Celtic warlord’s. He was, rumour had it, the most truculent of rock stars, handy with both verbals and fists; while his Cream co-members, Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, were mostly cool and understated, he was mysteriously agitated, bug-eyed and feral, like a pissed-off wizard.

From a review of Hellraiser, The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Drummer at The Independent

.

… of Johnny Nash. He’s 71.

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way

… of Jill St. John; she’s 71. A 1960s hottie, St. John, real name Jill Oppenheim, reportedly has an IQ of 162.

… of Fred Dalton Thompson. The actor and former U.S. Senator is 69.

… of Gerald McRaney, Major Dad. He’s 64 today.

… of Tipper Gore. She’s 63.

… of Kyra Sedgwick, 46.

… of Matthew Perry. The Friend is 42.

Gene Roddenberry was born on August 19th in 1921. The creator of Star Trek died in 1991.

The poet Ogden Nash was born on this date in 1902.

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

From his “Reflections on Ice-Breaking.” Or, from “The Firefly”:

The firefly’s flame Is something for which science has no name
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a
person’s posteerier.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born on this date in 1883. She died in 1971.

Orville Wright was born on August 19th in 1871. He was four years younger than his brother Wilbur. The brothers opened a bicycle repair shop in 1892 and manufactured bicycles by 1896. It was Wilbur more than Orville that became interested in flight about that time. It was Orville however, who was the pilot for the first ever fatal crash. In 1908, Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge was a passenger. Selfridge was killed when the propellor fractured and the plane lost control and crashed. Orville Wright was seriously injured. This was at Fort Myer, across the Potomac from Washington. Orville, of course, flew again. In May 1910 he piloted with Wilbur as a passenger, the only time the two ever flew together. Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912, age 45. Orville last piloted a plane in 1918 but lived as the elder statesman of aviation until 1948. Photo shows the Wright brothers in 1910, Orville on left, Orville’s brother on right.

The British landed on the Patuxent River in Maryland on August 19th in 1814. It took them five days to reach Washington. Arsonist bastards.

Four men and one woman were executed in Salem, Massachusetts, on this day in 1692. They had been convicted of witchcraft.

Rosalynn Carter is 84.

Roman Polanski is 78.

Attorney Vincent Bugliosi is 77. Bugliosi came to fame as the prosecutor of Charlie Manson and family.

It’s the birthday of Rafer Johnson. The decathlete is 76. It was Johnson who lit the Olympic torch in Los Angeles in 1984.

Robert Redford is 74. Redford has been nominated for two directing Oscars, winning for Ordinary People. His only acting nomination was for The Sting.

Rockabilly great Johnny Preston, singer of the classic number one song “Running Bear,” was born 72 years ago today. “Running Bear” was written by J.P. Richardson, The Big Bopper. It was number one for three weeks in 1960. The Indian chants were by Richardson and George Jones. Yes, that George Jones.

The original above. Johnny singing the song a couple years ago below. He died in March.

Martin Mull is 68.

Patrick Swayze would have been 59 today.

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is 50. He is the 75th person to have that job. Alexander Hamilton was first.

Edward Norton is 42 today. Norton has both a leading and a supporting Oscar nomination but no wins yet.

Christian Slater is 42 today too.

Malcolm-Jamal Walker is 41. He was Cosby’s son Theo on the TV show.

Andy Samberg is 33.

Roberto Clemente Walker should have been 76 today.

Roberto Clemente Walker’s pride and humanitarianism won him universal admiration. Despite an unorthodox batting style, the Pirates great won four batting crowns and amassed 3,000 hits. He was equally brilliant in right field, where he displayed a precise and powerful arm. Clemente earned National League MVP honors in 1966, but achieved his greatest fame in the 1971 World Series, in which he batted .414. Tragically, Clemente’s life ended at age 38 — the victim of a plane crash while flying relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Max Factor was born on August 18, 1904.

Shelly Winters would have been 91 today. Miss Winters won best supporting actress twice and had two other nominations for that honor. She died five years ago.

Antonio Salieri was born on this date in 1750. After his characterization as a villain in Peter Shaffer’s play and film Amadeus, it seems Salieri has made a bit of a comeback. According to a December 2003 article at Guardian Unlimited and other sources, while there was competition between the upstart Mozart and the established artist Salieri in Vienna, there was cooperation, too; that is, what transpired between them was typical office politics.

Meriwether Lewis was born on this date in 1774. Lewis had this to say on his 31st birthday 205 years ago today, camped just east of Lemhi Pass near the present-day Montana-Idaho border. (From the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online at the University of Nebraska.)

This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.—

His birthday doubts are made all the more poignant, of course, with our knowledge that just more than four years later Lewis took his own life at age 35.

Maureen O’Hara is 91 today. Once voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Miss O’Hara is proabably best known now as Natalie Wood’s unbelieving mother in the classic Miracle on 34th Street (filmed when O’Hara was 26); or perhaps as Esmeralda to Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul is 79.

Robert De Niro is 68 today. De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Raging Bull in 1981. He also won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as the young Vito Corleone in Godfather II. De Niro’s other nominations were for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.

Belinda Carlisle is 53.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen is 52 today. His The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award.

Sean Penn is 51 today. Penn has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Mystic River and Milk. Penn’s other nominations were for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam.

Football coach/commentator Jon Gruden is 48.

Jorge Posada is 40 today. It’s over, Jorge. See ya’.

Davy Crockett — frontiersman, soldier, three-term congressman, restless soul — was born on this day in 1786. As congressman 1827-1831 and 1833-1835, Crockett opposed many of President Andrew Jackson policies, particularly the Indian Removal Act. Crockett published A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett. Written by Himself in 1834. When he lost reelection that year he went to Texas, where he died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836.

After seeing Mae’s jewelry the coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” That’s screen legend Mae West in Night After Night. Ms. West was born on this date in 1893.

Francis Gary Powers was born on August 17, 1929. The CIA pilot was shot down over Soviet airspace on May 1, 1960, flying in a U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. It was a major international incident. He was convicted of espionage but released in 1962 in a prisoner exchange. Upon arriving home he was criticized for not activating the plane’s self-destruct mechanism (he said it didn’t work) and not killing himself. He was largely exonerated and was ultimately highly decorated much of it long after his death. Powers died in 1977 when his Los Angles news helicopter crashed.

Football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was born on this date in 1862. Skull and Bones at Yale, Stagg was on the first All-America team ever (1889). He coached most famously at the University of Chicago, 1892-1932. Stagg developed the man-in-motion and the lateral pass — and developed basketball as a five man game. He is in both the college football and basketball halls of fame.

Amos Alonzo Stagg is a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected as both player and coach in 1951. He was born August 16, 1862, in West Orange, New Jersey, and enrolled at Yale as a divinity student. He played five seasons for the Bulldogs and took up football as a sport secondary to baseball. He was an accomplished pitcher receiving offers to play professionally as he led Yale to five championships. He saw little action in his first two seasons, but in 1888 Stagg was a regular on one of the greatest teams of all time. That year Yale won 13 games, out-scoring the opposition 698-0. Besides Stagg, the team featured three other Hall of Fame members, William Corbin, Pudge Heffelfinger and George Woodruff. Entering his final collegiate game against Princeton in 1889, Yale had won 37 consecutive games. In the second half of a scoreless game, Stagg prevented a touchdown by tackling Hall of Famer “Snake” Ames deep in Yale territory. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, Princeton later pushed across two scores to defeat Yale 10-0. For his career, Stagg and his teammates posted a 53-2-1 record, and he was chosen a member of the first All-America team in 1889. After his playing career he went on to coach for 54 seasons, winning 314 games at Springfield College, University of Chicago and the College of the Pacific. He invented the batting cage for baseball and the trough for overflow in swimming pools. Stagg died March 17, 1965, at age 102 in Stockton, California.

College Football Hall of Fame

____________

Amos Alonzo Stagg, whose roots in basketball go as far back as James Naismith and the Springfield Y, was instrumental to basketball’s development during its formative years. An All-American football player at Yale, Stagg coached on the gridiron at the University of Chicago in 1899. In 1892, he brought basketball from Springfield to Chicago. While coach and director of athletics at the University of Chicago, he popularized the practice of five-man basketball. In 1917, Stagg organized the University of Chicago National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament, which, until its demise in 1931, did wonders to improve and standardize the rules and interpretation for high school play. Stagg coached the University of Chicago against the University of Iowa in the first college game played with five players on a side on January 16, 1896.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Stagg was 5-6 and weighed 147 pounds as a player at Yale.

Julie Newmar, Catwoman on the Batman TV series, is 78 today.

Frank Gifford is 81 today. Kathie Lee Gifford is 58 today.

One-time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, for her performance in Victor Victoria, Lesley Ann Warren is 63 today.

Oscar-winner James Cameron is 57. Cameron won, of course, for Titanic — film editing, director, best picture.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone is 53. She has sold more than 300 million records — and has a Golden Globe for her performance in Evita.

Madonna is one of the most recognizable names in the world – and not just the world of music. She became the first multimedia pop icon, crossing from dance-oriented pop music into movies, television, videos, fashion and books while achieving a level of celebrity comparable to that of a primary inspiration, Marilyn Monroe. Madonna has been a ubiquitous and, at times, controversial figure since erupting on the scene with her debut single, Everybody,” in 1982. No one in the pop realm has manipulated the media with such a savvy sense of self-promotion. Yet Madonna’s career has always had a solid musical footing, and her life – however outrageous and calculated at certain points – has proceeded on an unfolding path of self-discovery and open-hearted revelation.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Best actress Oscar nominee Angela Bassett is 53 today too. She was nominated for her performance as Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It.

Laura Innes is 52. She was the longest serving member of the E.R. cast (Noah Wyle had more episodes).

Supporting actor Oscar-winner for Ordinary People when he was 20, Timothy Hutton is 51.

Steve Carrell is 49.

Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks is 39. Originally Emily Erwin (Robison is her married name), she and her sister Martie (now Maguire) founded the group with two other classmates. The other two left and the group added Natalie Maines as the lead singer in 1995.

Fess Parker and Robert Culp, both big stars on TV, were born on August 16th — Parker in 1924, Culp in 1930. Parker was most famously Davy Crockett, discovered by Disney after seeing Them!, where Parker had a bit part. The Crockett role was both Parker’s professional success and doom, the latter because Disney wouldn’t let the actor portray any other type of character but the soft-spoken, pioneer hero type. Ultimately that led to his portrayal of Daniel Boone on NBC, 165 episodes 1964-1970. Culp was best known as the tennis player-secret agent on I Spy with co-star Bill Cosby, 1965-1968.

The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published 57 years ago.

Yesterday’s birthdays were published just now, but the post is dated August 14th, so click the link or scroll on down the page.

August 14th | NewMexiKen

Today is Napoleon’s birthday. He was born August 15, 1769 (and died in 1821, at age 51). As an adult, Napoleon Bonaparte was just over 5-feet, 6-inches tall (1.686 m), about average for his countrymen at the time.

Four time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress (one win), Ethel Barrymore was born on this date in 1879.

Pulitzer-winning author Edna Ferber was born 121 years ago today. She’s known best for So Big (Pulitzer prize in 1924), Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant and Ice Palace.

TV chef Julia Child was born Julia McWilliams in Pasadena, California, on this date in 1912.

Wisecracking Dick Van Dyke Show co-star Rose Marie is 88.

Mannix, Mike Connors, is 86.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 73.

Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth, is 61.

Debra Messing is 43.

Ben Affleck is 39.

Jennifer Lawrence is 21 today. She was a best actress Oscar nominee for Winter’s Bone.

Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, would have been 57 today. He died in 2004.

Pro Football Hall of Fame member Gene Upshaw was born on August 15th in 1945. Upshaw played for the Raiders, 1967-1981. (Ahh, the glory years.) Upshaw had a second career as Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association. He died in August 2008.

Canadian born jazz pianist Oscar Peterson was born 86 years ago today (1925). The seven-time Grammy winner died in 2007.

Today is the Feast of the Assumption, the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the feast celebrates both the “happy departure of Mary from this life” and the “assumption of her body into heaven.”

By promulgating the Bull Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Faith. Likewise, the Second Vatican Council taught in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium that “the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things.”

Today is the birthday

… of Earl Weaver. The former Baltimore Orioles manager is 81.

Earl Weaver managed the Orioles with intensity, flair, and acerbic wit for 17 seasons. He fashioned an impressive .583 winning percentage bolstered by five 100-win seasons (1969-1971 and 1979-1980). Known for his innovative managerial style and his colorful confrontations with the men in blue, the Earl of Baltimore won 1,480 games, six American League East titles, four pennants and the 1970 World Series.

Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Dash Crofts. The Crofts of Seals and Crofts is 71.

… of David Crosby. The Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Nash is 70. Mama Cass introduced Crosby, Stills and Nash to one another in 1968. Before that, of course, Mr. Crosby was in another Hall of Fame group, The Byrds.

… of Steve Martin, born in Waco, Texas, but raised near Disneyland. He’s 66 today.

… of Susan St. James. The wife of McMillan and Wife is 65. McMillan was played by Rock Hudson. Ms. Saint James has been married to Dick Ebersol, formerly of NBC Sports, for 30 years. Her name at birth was Susan Jane Miller.

… of Danielle Steel. The novelist is 64.

… of Gary Larson. The Far Side cartoonist is 61.

… of Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Magic is 52, as is actress Marcia Gay Harden.

… of Susan Olsen. Cindy, of The Brady Bunch, is — wait — for — it — 50.

… of Halle Berry. The Academy Award winner is 45.

… of Tim Tebow. He’s 24.

… of Ernest Lawrence Thayer, the poet who wrote “Casey at the Bat,” born on this date in 1863.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the end of World War II; V-J[apan] Day or V-P[acific] Day. That’s Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photo, “The Kiss.” The nurse has been identified as Edith Cullen Shain. She was 27 that day. No one knows who the sailor was.

… is 85 today. He took control of Cuba in 1959.

Castro wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940. (He says he was 12, but should have been 13 or 14.) “If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american in the letter [back] because never have I not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.” Castro went on to say, “I don’t know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you [FDR] don’t know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.”

Perhaps if FDR had given him the $10 history might have been different.

I saw Castro give a speech outside the Hotel Nacional in Havana in 1993.

… was born 151 years ago today (1860).

As the star attraction of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she thrilled audiences around the world with her daring shooting feats. Her act helped fuel turn-of-the-century nostalgia for the vanished, mythical world of the American West. Over time she became an American legend — the loud, brassy, cocksure shooter celebrated in the musical “Annie Get Your Gun.” But that legend had little to do with the real Annie Oakley. Although famous as a Western sharpshooter, Oakley lived her entire life east of the Mississippi. A champion in a man’s sport, she forever changed ideas about the abilities of women, yet she opposed female suffrage. Her fame and fortune came from her skill with guns, yet she was a Quaker.

American Experience | Annie Oakley | PBS

Larry McMurtry’s excellent essay “Inventing the West” from the August 2000 issue of The New York Review of Books tells us about this famous performer.

Annie Oakley (Phoebe Ann Moses—or Mosey) grew up poor in rural Ohio, shot game to feed her family, shot game to sell, was pressed into a shooting contest with a touring sharpshooter named Frank Butler, beat him, married him, stayed with him for fifty years, and died three weeks before he did in 1926.

When Annie Oakley and Frank Butler offered themselves to Cody the Colonel was dubious. His fortunes were at a low ebb, and shooting acts abounded. But he gave Annie Oakley a chance. She walked out in Louisville before 17,000 people and was hired immediately. Nate Salsbury, Cody’s tight-fisted manager, who did not spend lavishly and who rarely highlighted performers, happened to watch Annie rehearse and promptly ordered seven thousand dollars’ worth of posters and billboard art.

Annie Oakley more than justified the expense. Sitting Bull, normally a taciturn fellow, saw her shoot in Minnesota and could not contain himself. Watanya cicilia, he called her, his Little Sure Shot. Small, reserved, Quakerish, she seemed to live on the lemonade Buffalo Bill dispensed free to all hands. In London she demolished protocol by shaking hands with Princess Alexandra. She shook hands with Alexandra’s husband, the Prince of Wales, too, though, like his mother the Queen, she strongly disapproved of his behavior with the ladies. In France the Parisians were glacially indifferent to buffalo, Indians, cowboys, and Cody—Annie Oakley melted them so thoroughly that she had to go through her act five times before she could escape. In Germany she likened Bismarck to a mastiff.

In 1901 she was almost killed in a train wreck. Annie claimed that it was the wreck that caused her long auburn hair to turn white overnight; skeptics said her hair turned white because she left it in hot water too long while at a spa. She continued to shoot into the 1920s. In her last years she looked rather like Nancy Astor. Will Rogers visited her not long before her death and pronounced her the perfect woman. Probably not until Billie Jean King and the rise of women’s tennis had a female outdoor performer held the attention of so many people. She became part of the “invention” that is the West by winning her way with a gun: a man’s thing, the very thing, in fact, that had won the West itself.

Annie was her nickname as a child. Oakley was a stage name. Offstage she referred to herself as Mrs. Frank Butler.

Photo taken 1902 when Oakley was 42. Click image for larger version.

Cantinflas, the great Mexican comedian, acrobat and musician — and bullfighter — was born 100 years ago today. His actual name was Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes. Cantinflas appeared in more than 50 films, most famously as Passepartout in Michael Todd’s 1956 Around the World in Eighty Days. In English-speaking countries, David Niven was billed as the star. Elsewhere Cantinflas took top billing — he was the highest paid actor in the world at the time. He saved the movie from the stiff Niven if you ask me.

William Goldman is 80 today. He won Oscars for best original screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and best adapted screenplay for All the President’s Men. Other screenplays he has written include The Princess Bride, adapted from his own novel, Heat, Harper, Maverick and Marathon Man.

Parnelli Jones is 78 today. Jones won the Indianapolis 500 in 1963.

George Hamilton is 72 today.

Mark Knopfler is 62. Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.

Pete Sampras is 40.

Katharine Lee Bates was born on this date in 1859. A poet, she is best remembered for the words to “America the Beautiful,” first published in 1895 and refined until 1913. She had been to the top of Pikes Peak in 1893.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

If you know anything about mythology you probably learned about it first from Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867. Hamilton’s book Mythology, written after she had retired as a school head mistress, was published in 1942.

Christy Mathewson was born on this date in 1880. Mathewson was one of the original five inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 — with Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson. Mathewson had died in 1925.

As charismatic and popular as any player in the early 1900s, the college-educated Christy Mathewson won 373 games over 17 seasons, primarily for the New York Giants. Using his famous fadeaway pitch, Matty won at least 22 games for 12 straight years beginning in 1903, winning 30 games or more four times. A participant in four World Series, Mathewson’s lone title came in 1905 when he tossed three shutouts in six days against the Athletics. He set the modern National League mark with 37 wins in 1908.

Baseball Hall of Fame

The movie producer Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12th in 1881. Known for his extravaganzas (e.g., The Ten Commandments), DeMille won his only Oscar for The Greatest Show on Earth.

Three-time Emmy winner Jane Wyatt, Margaret Anderson of Father Knows Best and Spock’s mother on Star Trek, was born 101 years ago today. Her Emmys were in 1958, 1959 and 1960. She died in 2006.

The actor, director John Derek was born on August 12, 1926. Derek’s wives included Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Bo Derek.

Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born on August 12, 1929. As Buck Owens with his band the Buckaroos he had 21 number one country music hits. Owens also co-hosted the television comedy-variety show Hee Haw 1969-1986.

And it’s the birthday of Zerna Sharp, born in Hillisburg, Indiana, on this date in 1889. According to The Writer’s Almanac a few years back, Ms. Sharp is the woman who —

invented the characters Dick and Jane to help teach children how to read…Sharp’s idea was to use pictures and repetition to teach children new words. She took her idea to Dr. William S. Gray, who had been studying the way children learn to read, and he hired her to create a series of textbooks. She didn’t write the books, but she created the characters Dick, Jane, their sister Sally, their dog Spot, and their cat Puff. Each story introduced five new words, one on each page.

The IBM PC (Personal Computer) was released 30 years ago today.

Cleopatra VII Philopator committed suicide on this date in 30 B.C. She was Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt for 21 years (ruling with her two brother-husbands and her son). In addition to her two brothers, her spouses were Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She wasn’t yet 39 when she died.

Alex Haley was born 90 years ago today. More about Haley in a separate post.

David Rice Atchison was born on August 11, 1807. Atchison was U.S. senator from Missouri 1844-1855. He was twice present pro tempore of the Senate, including during 1849. Saturday, March 3, 1849, was James K. Polk’s last day as president. Zachary Taylor did not take the oath until Monday, March 5, 1849. So, some claim, on Sunday, March 4, 1849, the president pro tempore of the senate was the president of the United States, and that was David Rice Atchison. Atchison, Kansas, is named for the senator. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad is named for the town.

Mike Douglas was born Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. on August 11, 1925. Douglas began his entertainment career as a singer on a Lake Michigan dinner cruise ship. He was the vocalist with Kay Kyser until 1951, including two hit songs, “Ole Buttermilk Sky” and “The Old Lamplighter.” Douglas did the vocals for Prince Charming in Cinderella. He became a daytime television talk show host in 1961 in Cleveland, first on the five Westinghouse owned stations, but later in wide syndication. The Mike Douglas Show was immensely popular and highly regarded and lasted until 1982. Guests included just about everybody. Douglas died on his birthday five years ago today.

Marilyn dos Savant, once listed by Guinness as having the world record IQ, is 65 today. Many have challenged the validity of IQ testing and Guinness quit listing highest IQ in 1990 — the concept is so vague and as dos Savant herself has said “attempts to measure it are useless.” She has written a column in Parade since 1986. She also is CFO for Jarvik Heart, Inc. Dr. Jarvik is her husband. Vos Savant was first listed in Guinness for having an IQ of 185. At one time, based on a test she took as 10-year-old, she claimed 228.

Co-developer of Apple, with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, Steve Wozniak is 61 today. Wozniak is considered solely responsible for the 1975 Apple I hardware, circuit board and operating system.

Hulk Hogan is 58 today. The columnist David Brooks is 50. Pablo Sandoval, Kung Fu Panda, is 25.

Leo Fender was born 102 years ago today.

“It’s safe to say there would be no such thing as rock and roll without its distinctive instrumentation. To put it another way, rock and roll as we know it could not exist without Leo Fender, inventor of the first solid-body electric guitar to be mass-produced: the Fender Broadcaster. Fender’s instruments – which also include the Stratocaster, the Precision bass (the first electric bass) and some of the music world’s most coveted amplifiers – revolutionized popular music in general and rock and roll in particular.
…

The bass-driven soul music of Motown and Stax would have been inconceivable without Fender’s handiwork.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Jimi, Clapton, Jeff Beck all used a Fender Strat.

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10 in 1874. Mr. Hoover, who was the 31st President of the United States, lived until 1964. Among the presidents, only Ford, Reagan, and the first Adams have lived longer.

Born in Iowa, orphaned at nine, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was in the first class at Stanford University, graduating as a mining engineer. Hoover earned millions in mining before turning his attention to public service. He was instrumental in relief and humanitarian efforts during and after World War I. He was Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Hoover, the Republican, defeated Al Smith, the Democrat, handily in the 1928 election with 58% of the popular vote.

President at the time of the stock market crash and subsequent depression, Hoover believed that, while people should not suffer, assistance should be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. Even so, he supported some measures to aid businesses and farmers; indeed, among his party he was moderate. But he was simply not bold enough to meet the crisis. Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, 57.3% to 39.6% of the popular vote, 472-59 in the electoral vote.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bobbie Hatfield was born on this date in 1940 (on the right in the photo). The Righteous Brothers — blue-eyed soul. No one believed they were white. The name had something to do with that, but it was the sound that fooled everyone. Hatfield had the higher voice; Bill Medley the lower. In the book accompanying the Phil Spector compilation, Back to Mono, songwriter Cynthia Weil recalls that:

After Phil, Barry [co-writer Barry Mann] and I finished [“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”], we took it over to The Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song. I remember Bobby Hatfield saying, “But what do I do while he’s singing the whole first verse?” and Phil said, “You can go directly to the bank!”

Hatfield died in 2003.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Veronica Bennett is 68 today. That’s Ronnie Spector, one-time Mrs. Phil Spector (married 1968-1974), and lead singer of The Ronettes (with her sister and cousin). Hits included Be My Baby and Walkin’ in the Rain. “I like to look the way Ronnie Spector sounds: sexy, hungry, totally trashy. I admire her tonal quality.” — Madonna, quoted at RonnieSpector.com.

Rosanna Arquette is 52.

Antonio Banderas is 51 today.

Andrew Sullivan is 48.

Angie Harmon is 39.

Country singer, TV personality, sausage seller Jimmy Dean was born on August 10th in 1928. He died last year. Dean’s “Big Bad John” was the number one song for five weeks 50 years ago.

Singer Eddie Fisher was also born on this date in 1928 and died last year. He was Mr. Debbie Reynolds when Elizabeth Taylor caused him to compromise his marriage vows. And he is Carrie Fisher’s father.

Eusebio Kino was baptized on this date in 1645. Kino was instrumental in the exploration and Christianization of northern Sonora and what is now southern Arizona (Pimería Alta). Born Eusebius Franz Kühn in present-day Italy (Kino is the Spanish variation), he was educated in Innsbruck (now Austria) and joined the Jesuits in 1665. Kino came to Pimería Alta in 1687 and in 24 years established 24 missions and explored some 50,000 square miles. His is one of two statues representing Arizona in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.

Today is the birthday

… of Bob Cousy, basketball hall-of-famer. He’s 83. Bob Cousy was a star of such stature that when a new basketball coach was hired by my high school in 1958, his claim to fame was he’d held Cousy to ten points once in college.

… of Rod Laver, tennis hall-of-famer. He’s 73.

… of Ken Norton, boxing hall-of-famer. He’s 68.

… of Sam Elliott, 67 today. Elliott just looks like a cowboy, or the image we think of when we think of cowboy. Even so, NewMexiKen liked him best as General John Buford in Gettysburg and he was good in The Contender.

… of Melanie Griffith, 54 today. No longer a working “girl.” She got an Oscar nomination for best actress for that role. Ms. Griffith’s mother is Tippi Hedren, known from the Hitchcock thriller The Birds.

… of Whitney Houston, 48.

… of Brett Hull, hockey hall-of-famer. He’s 47.

… of Deion Sanders. Sanders played for the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens and was on Super Bowl champion teams with the 49ers and Cowboys. He also played for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. Sanders is 44.

… of Audrey Tautou, 33. If she’s made any bad movies, I haven’t seen them. In America I suppose she is best known as Sophie Neveu in The Da Vinci Code. Check out Amélie or A Very Long Engagement.

… of Robert Shaw, born on this date in 1927. Shaw was Doyle Lonegan in The Sting and Captain Quint in Jaws. He was nominated for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. A favorite of NewMexiKen is his work as Mr. Blue in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Shaw died in 1978.

Izaak Walton was born on this date in 1593. He’s the author of many books, most famously The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653.

Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did”; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

Jesse Owens won the fourth of his four Olympic gold medals on this date in 1936. In Berlin, Owens won gold for the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and — on August 9th — the leadoff leg of the 400 meter relay (a world record that lasted for 20 years).

Today is the birthday

… of Esther Williams, 90. When the national AAU 100 meter freestyle champion found out the 1940 Olympics were cancelled because of the war, she went to Hollywood.

… of The Shark, Jerry Tarkanian. The coach is 81 today.

… of Dustin Hoffman, 74 today. Hoffman has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role seven times, winning for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. Dustin Lee Hoffman is his actual name.

… of Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia, known as Connie Stevens. She’s 73 today.

… of John Renbourn, 67.

… of Larry Wilcox, 64 today. That’s CHiPs officer Jon Baker.

… of Ralph Malph of Happy Days. Don Most is 58.

… of The Edge, 50 today. His given name is David Howell Evans.

… of Roger Federer, 30.

… of the magnificently endowed John Holmes, born 67 years ago today. He died in 1988.

… of Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On, a history of the early years of AIDS, born 60 years ago today. He died in 1994.

… of Marjorie Rawlings, born on this date in 1896. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling.

… of Emiliano Zapata, born on this date in 1879. “There have been men who, dying, have become stronger. I can think of many of them — Benito Juárez, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ — Perhaps it might be that way with me.”

Arthur J. Goldberg was born on this date in 1908. Goldberg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Kennedy in 1962. He subsequently made one of the great sacrifices for his country:

Three years after Goldberg took his seat on the Supreme Court, President Lyndon Johnson asked him to step down and accept an appointment as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. At first, Goldberg declined the offer, but after much prodding by Johnson, he finally accepted. Goldberg’s change of mind was prompted by his sense of duty to the country during the war in Vietnam. He said, “I thought I could persuade Johnson that we were fighting the wrong war in the wrong place, [and] to get out…. I would have loved to have stayed on the Court, but my sense of priorities was [that] this war would be disastrous” (Stebenne, 348). On July 26, 1965, Goldberg assumed the responsibilities of Ambassador to the UN.

The ambassadorship proved frustrating for Goldberg, involving many confrontations with Johnson concerning the war in Vietnam. Goldberg came to believe that he could affect American foreign policy better as a private citizen than through a governmental position, and on April 23, 1968, he resigned from the ambassadorship. He returned to the practice of law in New York City from 1968 to 1971 with the firm of Paul, Weiss, Goldberg, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison.

[Source: The Supreme Court Papers of Arthur J. Goldberg, Northwestern University School of Law]

Goldberg died in 1990. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery near his friend, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Academy Award winning actress Patricia Neal died a year ago today.

… of Nathanael Greene, born on this date in 1742. Greene was a major general in the American army during the Revolutionary War and was the primary architect of American success in the south.

… of Billie Burke, known to most of us as Glinda the Good Witch of the North, born on August 7th in 1884. Ms. Burke was nominated for an Academy Award in 1938 for her performance in Merrily We Live. Earlier she had been a musical star on Broadway and was married to Florenz Ziegfeld 1914-1932 (his death). That’s her in the photo.

… of archaeologist Louis Leakey, born August 7, 1903. Leakey was instrumental in research on human evolutionary development in Africa.

… of Ralph Bunche, born on this date in 1904.

Like his world, Dr. Bunche was a man of many faces and talents, full of paradox and struggle. By training and temperament, he was an ideal international civil servant, a black man of learning and experience open to men and ideas of all shades.

At the United Nations, he had been a key diplomat for more than two decades since his triumphal success in negotiating the difficult 1949 armistice between the new state of Israel and the Arab states.

As the architect of the Palestine accord, he won the Nobel Peace Prize of 1950.

The New York Times obituary for Bunche, 1971

… of comedian, satirist, voice actor, and maker of some of the great commercials, Stan Freberg, 85 today. His satirical version of Dragnet still resonates with anyone who ever watched that cop show.

… of the Amazing Randi, 83 today. James Randi, born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, retired as a magician at age 60. Since he has investigated claims of the paranormal and supernatural — what he calls “woo-woo.”

The James Randi Educational Foundation was founded in 1996 to help people defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. The JREF offers a still-unclaimed million-dollar reward for anyone who can produce evidence of paranormal abilities under controlled conditions. Through scholarships, workshops, and innovative resources for educators, the JREF works to inspire this investigative spirit in a new generation of critical thinkers.

We need your help to create a world where everyone has access to the tools of science and critical thinking, and charlatans can’t get rich by deceiving people. You can make a difference by becoming a member, taking action with us to stop paranormal and pseudoscientific frauds, or joining us at the Amaz!ng Meeting, the world’s premier gathering of skeptical thinkers.

James Randi Educational Foundation

… of Don Larsen, only pitcher to throw a perfect game (or no-hitter) in the World Series (1956), 82 today.

… of Gary Edward “Garrison” Keillor, born in Anoka (not Lake Wobegon), Minnesota, 69 years ago today.

… of Steve Martin, born in Waco, Texas (but grew up near Disneyland), 66 years ago today.

… of Newman. Actor Wayne Knight is 56 today. He was also the bad guy computer programmer in Jurassic Park.

… of Oscar winner, for Monster, Charlize Theron, born in South Africa, 36 years ago today.

Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was born 48 years ago today to the President and Mrs. Kennedy. The child died two days later.

Just watched a couple of Lucy clips via Google and remembered how incredibly funny she could be. So, a little more about Lucille Ball on her 100th birthday.

This from American Masters (the beginning of their brief biography):

For more than thirty years, Lucille Ball was one of the most recognized and loved entertainers in the world. Known to all simply as Lucy, she portrayed a scatterbrained housewife with the ability to turn simple chores into unparalleled fiascoes. Clumsy and unsophisticated at nearly everything she tried (and she tried nearly everything), the television Lucy won the hearts of average Americans across all social and cultural lines with her wacky schemes. Ironically, it was Ball’s wide range of experience and talents that made her such a success in this role.

Dropping out of high school at the age of fifteen, Ball moved to New York to study acting and found her first stage work as a chorus girl in 1927. She had her first break as a poster-girl for Chesterfield cigarettes and soon found herself in tinsel town as one of twelve slave-girls in the Eddie Cantor film, Roman Candles (1933). By the mid-1930s, if you went to the movies (and in the 1930s everyone went to the movies) you would be certain to see Lucille Ball. Sometimes a nurse or a dancer, sometimes a flower clerk or a college girl, but always there. By the end of the decade she had been in forty-three films and was known as “Queen of the B Movies.”

There’s more.

Lucille Ball was born 100 years ago today. It has been said that Ms. Ball’s image has been seen more times by more people than that of any other person in history.

Miss Ball, noted for impeccable timing, deft pantomime and an endearing talent for making the outrageous believable, was a Hollywood legend: a contract player at RKO in the 1930’s and 40’s who later bought the studio with Desi Arnaz, her first husband.
. . .

The elastic-faced, husky-voiced comedian was a national institution from 1951 to 1974 in three series and many specials on television that centered on her “Lucy” character. The first series, “I Love Lucy,” was for six years the most successful comedy series on television, never ranking lower than third. The series, on CBS, chronicled the life of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban band leader played by Mr. Arnaz, who was Miss Ball’s husband on and off screen for nearly 20 years.

The New York Times

Cavett interview was in 1974.

A year or so ago I saw an early Three Stooges film with Lucille Ball in a bit part.

If Lucy isn’t enough for a holiday, how about Andy Warhol? He was born Andrew Warhola on this date 83 years ago.

His father was a Czechoslovakian immigrant and a coal miner. His mother was extremely protective, and she let him spend all his time as a child drawing copies of Maybelline advertisements.

He got a job as an advertising illustrator in New York City in the 1950s, but he wanted to be a serious artist. One day, he got the idea to start painting pictures of advertisements, movie stars, and other popular images. He made silk-screened pictures of Campbell’s soup cans and sculptures of Brillo boxes, and his style became known as Pop Art.

Though he was surrounded by hard-partying rock stars and artists, he lived with his mother, and he went to a Catholic church almost every Sunday. His friends said that he never took drugs and only drank occasionally.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2008)

Or maybe one of America’s foremost historians, Richard Hofstadter, born on this date in 1916. Sam Tanenhaus, writing five years ago in a review of a Hofstadter biography:

At his death in 1970, Richard Hofstadter was probably this country’s most renowned historian, best known as the originator of the “consensus” school, whose measured siftings of the American past de-emphasized conflict — whether economic, regional or ideological — and highlighted instead the nation’s long tradition of shared ideas, principles and values.

This school had a limited shelf life, but Hofstadter’s work has outlived it, owing to the clarity and nuance of his thought and his talent for drawing parallels between disparate episodes in our national narrative, almost always bringing the argument around to the concerns of midcentury America. “I know it is risky,” he acknowledged in 1960, “but I still write history out of my engagement with the present.” The gamble, of course, was whether questions so pressing in his time would continue to engage later generations. To a remarkable extent they have, and so Hofstadter remains relevant — in some respects more relevant than ever.

Record producer Norman Granz was born on August 6, 1918. Granz was a fundamental figure in Jazz from after WWII to 1960. He was progressive on matters of race and paid his artists more than most. Granz’s most famous label was Verve, now part of Universal.

Peter Bonerz, Bob Newhart’s dentist buddy, is 73.

“The Admiral,” David Robinson is 46 today. M. Night Shyamalan is 41. Academy Award nominee (for Up in the Air) Vera Farmiga is 38. She’s a Jersey girl.

As noted earlier, Maureen McCormick is 55 today. That’s Marcia Brady. The Brady Bunch originally aired on ABC from September 1969 to March 1974 (117 episodes). McCormick was 13-17 while making the show. It’s reported that at least one episode of The Brady Bunch could be seen somewhere in the world every single day from 1975 through 2008. Unfortunately during several of those first years Ms. McCormick was stoned and missed the rest of her career. Her life improved after she married a man 1985 who claimed to have never seen the show. That’s her at a book signing on Maui a year-and-a-half ago.

Twelve individuals have walked on the surface of the moon. The first of them, Neil Armstrong, is 81 today. All you current and former civil servants out there should find Armstrong to be your particular hero. The first man on the moon was a federal employee of NASA, a GS-14.

John Huston, the director, writer and actor, was born on this date in 1906. Huston received five Oscar nominations for direction, eight for writing and one each for acting and best picture. He won for best direction and writing for Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1949. Among his other films are The Maltese Falcon, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, Prizzi’s Honor, Moby Dick and Moulin Rouge. Huston cast his father Walter in Treasure of the Sierra Madre and his daughter Anjelica in Prizzi’s Honor. Both won Academy Awards. John Huston played the title role in The Cardinal, his acting Oscar nomination, and the vile father of the Faye Dunaway character in Chinatown.

The first federal income tax was imposed 150 years ago today (1861). It was 3% on all income above $800. The following July a $600 deduction was established and a second bracket was added, taxing income above $10,000 at 5%. The first withholding also began in 1862. This Civil War income tax was abolished in 1872 — and direct taxes were ruled unconstitutional when attempted again in 1894. The 16th amendment (ratified in 1913) made direct taxes on individuals constitutional.

Marilyn Monroe was found dead on this date in 1962. She was 36. According to Joe DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer, after Monroe’s marriage to Arthur Miller had ended, she and DiMaggio had reconciled. By 1962 they planned to re-marry. The wedding was set for Wednesday, August 8, 1962. Very private, very hush-hush. Five days before the wedding date, on Saturday night, August 3, Marilyn died, a presumed suicide. According to Cramer, no coroner’s inquest was held. Monroe’s funeral was August 8, 1962.

American Bandstand went national on ABC on this date in 1957. Nelson Mandela went to prison on this date in 1962. He was released in 1990. Ronald Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers 30 years ago today. The American labor movement failed to stand behind its brothers and unions have been struggling ever since.

I woke up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack.

I remembered that Maureen McCormick has her birthday today.

Marcia Brady is 55.

Zack and Cody are 19 each. That’s the Sprouse twins, Dylan and Cole. They had the title roles in Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, later Suite Life on Deck. Dylan’s older. He’s named for the poet. Cole is younger. He’s named for Nat King Cole. The twins earned $40,000 an episode in 2010.

NASCAR’s Kurt Busch (#22) is 33 today. Jeff Gordon (#24) is 40.

Roger Clemens is 49.

If his birth certificate can be believed, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, 50 years ago today.

Lauren Tom is 50 today also. She was Lena St. Clair in The Joy Luck Club, Julie on Friends and does a lot of voiceover work, Futurama and King of the Hill (Minh and Connie Souphanousinphone), for example.

Mary Decker Slaney is 53 today. Among the best runners in the world, she was too young for the 1972 Olympics, injuries kept her from the 1976 games. (The U.S. did not compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.)

In Los Angeles in 1984 she fell and was injured in a collision with Zola Budd during 3000 meters final. This is from Sports Illustrated, August 24, 1984 (via Wikipedia). The photo was by Bob Thomas.

That last brutal kilometer would begin in about 300 meters, on the backstretch. Now, as Decker relaxed, gathering herself, the slight, pale, barefoot, 92-pound form of Budd again came even with her. Budd had been outside Decker’s right shoulder almost from the start, and Decker knew it. They had bumped elbows at 500 meters, a result of Budd’s wide-swinging arm action, and Decker had shot her a sharp look. Budd had sensed the slowing pace and didn’t like it. Her training and temperament combine to make her natural race one of constantly increasing pressure. She and her coach, Pieter Labuschagne, knew that she couldn’t kick with a fresh Decker or (Maricica) Puica. If she was to run her best in this Olympic final, the pace would have to go faster. So she passed Decker on the turn, just after, 1,600 meters. Decker felt her uncomfortably close. “She was cutting in on the turn, without being near passing,” Decker would say. By the end of the turn, Budd appeared to have enough margin to cut in without interfering with Decker’s stride, but instead she hung wide, on the outside of Lane 1, as they came into the stretch. Decker was near the rail, a yard behind Budd. Budd’s teammate, Wendy Sly, had come up to third, off Budd’s shoulder, and Puica was fourth, tucked in tight behind Decker, waiting. Decker sensed Budd drifting to the inside. “She tried to cut in without being, basically, ahead,” Decker would say. But Decker didn’t do what a seasoned middle-distance runner would have done. She didn’t reach out to Budd’s shoulder to let her know she was there, too close behind for Budd to move to the pole. Instead, Decker shortened her stride for a couple of steps. There was contact. Decker’s right thigh grazed Budd’s left foot. Budd took five more strides, slightly off balance. Trying to regain control, she swayed in slightly to the left. Decker’s right foot struck Budd’s left calf, low, just above the Achilles tendon. Budd’s left leg shot out, and she was near falling. But Decker was falling, tripped by that leg all askew. “To keep from pushing her, I fell,” she would say. She reached out after Budd, inadvertently tearing the number from her back and went headlong across the rail onto the infield.

Academy Award winner (adapted screenplay for Sling Blade), Billy Bob Thornton is 56. He was Mr. Angelina Jolie 2000-2003.

Potomac Valley Indigenous Persons running back John Riggins is 62 today. Best Riggins line among many, to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor “Loosen up, Sandy baby.”

Munch is 67 today. That’s actor Richard Belzer.

The Rocket, Maurice Richard was born on August 4th 90 years ago today. The hall of fame right wing played for the Montreal Canadiens, 1942-1960. He died in 2000.

And Louis Armstrong was born 110 years ago today. That should be enough to make it a holiday.