Category: Birthdays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaVUjjH3EI

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy machine-gun fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

Perhaps Pyle’s most famous piece: The Death of Captain Waskow. If you’ve never read it, do so now! If you’ve read it before, read it again!

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Today is also the birthday

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 91.

… of coach Marv Levy. He’s 86.

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 85.

… of Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, 71. Known better as Martin Sheen, he won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys despite six nominations. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown. His father was from Spain, his mother first-generation Irish. (Charlie Sheen’s real name in case you didn’t know is Carlos Irwin Estévez.)

… of Martha Stewart, 70.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 60.

… of Randy Scruggs, 58.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 34.

Leon Uris, author of Battle Cry, Exodus, Mila 18 and Trinity, was born in Baltimore on this date in 1924. He died in 2003.

Eight-time Oscar nominee for best actor, Peter O’Toole is 79 today.

Director-writer-producer Wes Craven is 72. He will be celebrating on Elm Street.

Kathy Lennon of the Lennon Sisters is 68.

Eddie Munster, aka actor Butch Patrick, is 58.

Emmy-winner, for Angels in America, Tony-winner for Proof, and Weeds star Mary Louise Parker is 47 today. Parker also played Amy Gardner on West Wing.

Andrew Gold would have been 60 today.

Carroll O’Connor was born on this date in 1924. He won a Golden Globe and four Emmys for his portrayal of Archie Bunker on All in the Family and a Golden Globe as the sheriff in the TV series In the Heat of the Night. O’Connor was also the truck driver who hits Kirk Douglas on his horse in the wonderful 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave. He died in 2001.

Author James Baldwin was born on this date in 1924.

After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, Go Tell It on the Mountain has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Giovanni’ Room (1956). Dealing with taboo themes in both books (homosexuality and interracial relationships, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and psychologically penetrating literature.

American Masters | PBS

Actress Myrna Loy was born on this date in 1905. IMDB has her listed for an incredible 138 roles, beginning with silent films when she was the femme fatale, but more famously as the witty, urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies. NewMexiKen liked her in The Best Years of Our Lives, a film everyone should see. It won seven Academy Awards in 1946.

Inventor, engineer, co-founder of Western Electric, Elisha Gray was born on August 2nd in 1835. Gray and Alexander Graham Bell engaged in a long legal battle over patents for the telephone. Who won? Well, we don’t call AT&T Ma Gray (though Gray’s work may have been instrumental to Bell).

James Butler Hickok was killed while playing poker in Deadwood 135 years ago today.

William Clark, the Clark of Lewis and Clark, was born on this date in 1770. He died in 1838. Here is Clark’s journal entry on his 36th birthday [1806] from Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online. He was on the Yellowstone River in what is now eastern Montana.

We Set out early as usial the wind was high and ahead which caused the water to be a little rough and delayed us very much aded to this we had Showers of rain repeetedly all day at the intermition of only a fiew minits between them. My Situation a very disagreeable one. in an open Canoe wet and without a possibility of keeping my Self dry. the Country through which we passed is in every respect like that through which I passed yesterday. The brooks have all Some water in them from the rains which has fallen. this water is excessively muddy. Several of those brooks have Some trees on their borders as far as I can See up them. I observe Some low pine an cedar on the Sides of the rugid hills on the Stard. Side, and Some ash timber in the high bottoms. the river has more Sand bars today than usial, and more Soft mud. the current less rapid. at 2 P. M. I was obliged to land to let the Buffalow Cross over. not withstanding an island of half a mile in width over which this gangue of Buffalow had to pass and the Chanel of the river on each Side nearly ¼ of a mile in width, this gangue of Buffalow was entirely across and as thick as they could Swim. the Chanel on the Side of the island the went into the river was crouded with those animals for ½ an hour. [NB: I was obliged to lay to for an hour] the other Side of the island for more than 3/4 of an hour. I took 4 of the men and killed 4 fat Cows for their fat and what portion of their flesh the Small Canoes Could Carry that which we had killed a few days ago being nearly Spoiled from the wet weather. encamped on an Island Close to the Lard Shore. two gangues of Buffalow Crossed a little below us, as noumerous as the first.

Francis Scott Key was born on August 1st in 1779.

Richard Henry Dana, author of the classic memoir Two Years Before the Mast, was born on August 1st in 1815. His trip to California was 1834-1836. Subsequently he graduated from Harvard Law School, practiced law and was a prominent abolitionist. Two Years Before the Mast (before the mast meaning among the crew, not as an officer) was published in 1840.

Herman Melville was born on August 1st in 1819. The Writer’s Almanac has a brief bio that includes this:

The Melvilles then settled into a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was here, in 1850, that Melville would meet Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom Melville would come to think of as a dear friend and confidant. The following year, after an intoxicating period of exploring the ideas of transcendentalism and allegorical writing, Melville penned his enduring masterpiece, Moby Dick, the lyrical, epic story of Ahab and the infamous white whale, dedicating it to Hawthorne in “admiration for his genius.” Moby Dick was met with mixed reviews. The London News declared Melville’s power of language “unparalleled,” while the novel was criticized elsewhere for its unconventional storytelling, and Melville’s fans were disappointed not to find the same kind of adventure story they had loved in Typee and Omoo. It was the beginning of the end of Melville’s career as a novelist and, following a series of literary failures, he turned to farming and writing articles to support his family.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor [excerpt]

Mary Harris Jones was born on this date in 1830 (or, more likely, 1837, or possibly May 1, 1837). She is better known to us as Mother Jones. The magazine named after her has a brief biographical essay that includes this:

The moniker “Mother” Jones was no mere rhetorical device. At the core of her beliefs was the idea that justice for working people depended on strong families, and strong families required decent working conditions. In 1903, after she was already nationally known from bitter mine wars in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, she organized her famous “march of the mill children” from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home on Long Island. Every day, she and a few dozen children — boys and girls, some 12 and 14 years old, some crippled by the machinery of the textile mills — walked to a new town, and at night they staged rallies with music, skits, and speeches, drawing thousands of citizens. Federal laws against child labor would not come for decades, but for two months that summer, Mother Jones, with her street theater and speeches, made the issue front-page news.

The rock of Mother Jones’ faith was her conviction that working Americans acting together must free themselves from poverty and powerlessness. She believed in the need for citizens of a democracy to participate in public affairs.

NewMexiKen has known about Mother Jones since the eponymous magazine first came out in 1976. What amazes me is that I had no knowledge of her before that, despite majoring in American history, and even though “For a quarter of a century, she roamed America, the Johnny Appleseed of activists.”

Robert Todd Lincoln, the first child of Abraham Lincoln and the only one to survive to adulthood, was born on this date in 1843. He died in 1926. (Lincoln’s son Eddie was born in 1846 and died in 1850. Son Willie died at age 12 in 1862. Son Tad (Thomas) died at age 18 in 1871.)

Jerry Garcia was born on this date in 1942. He died in 1995.

Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born 80 years ago today. He’s known as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, prominent among the folk singers of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and very influential on Bob Dylan.

Robert Cray is 58 today.

Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) is 46 today.

Edd “Kookie Kookie lend me your comb” Byrnes is 78 today.

Buddy Guy is 75.

Buddy Guy is one of the titans of the blues, straddling traditional and modern forms, as well as musical generations. He’s worked with Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf, on one hand, and Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Rolling Stones, on the other. There are few notable blues figures that Guy hasn’t brushed up against. He was even an influence on Jimi Hendrix.

Buddy Guy Biography | The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XUAg1_A7IE

Oscar nominee (direction and co-writer, The Last Picture Show) Peter Bogdanovich is 72.

Paul Anka is 70. Anka is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, is 64.

Kate Bush is 53.

Oscar best actor nominee Laurence Fishburne is 50.

The new coach of the American men’s national soccer team, Jürgen Klinsmann is 47.

Lisa Kudrow is 48.

Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is 37.

U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell is 32.

Joe Nuxhall, the youngest player ever to appear in the major leagues, was born on this date in 1928. Nuxhall pitched 2/3rds of an inning for the Cincinnati Reds on June 10, 1944. He was 15 years, 316 days old. He gave up 5 runs, with 5 walks, 2 hits and a wild pitch. It was 1952 before he again appeared, but he pitched for 15 more seasons. Nuxhall was a longtime Reds broadcaster. He died in 2007.

The Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel was born on this date in 1890.

Casey Stengel’s distinguished 54-year professional career spanned the era from Christy Mathewson to Mickey Mantle. He batted .284 over 14 seasons in the majors and accounted for both Giant victories in the 1923 World Series by hitting home runs. It was as a colorful and successful manager, though, that he earned Hall of Fame recognition. His feat of guiding the Yankees to 10 pennants and seven world titles in a 12-year span ranks as one of the most remarkable managerial accomplishments of all time.

Baseball Hall of Fame

A few Casey-isms:

“Can’t anybody here play this game?”

“Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”

“He’d (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch.”

One of the most remarkable Americans, Henry Ford, was born on this date in 1863. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Ford’s New York Times obituary in 1947:

Renting a one-story brick shed in Detroit, Mr. Ford spent the year 1902 experimenting with two- cylinder and four-cylinder motors. By that time the public had become interested in the speed possibilities of the automobile, which was no longer regarded as a freak. To capitalize on this interest, he built two racing cars, the “999” and the “Arrow,” each with a four-cylinder engine developing eighty horsepower. The “999,” with the celebrated Barney Oldfield at its wheel, won every race in which it was entered.

The resulting publicity helped Mr. Ford to organize the Ford Motor Company, which was capitalized at $100,000, although actually only $28,000 in stock was subscribed. From the beginning Mr. Ford held majority control of this company. In 1919 he and his son, Edsel, became its sole owners, when they bought out the minority stockholders for $70,000,000.

In 1903 the Ford Motor Company sold 1,708 two-cylinder, eight horsepower automobiles. …

With this material he began the new era of mass production. He concentrated on a single type of chassis, the celebrated Model T, and specified that “any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” On Oct. 1, 1908, he began the production of Model T, which sold for $850. The next year he sold 10,600 cars of this model. Cheap and reliable, the car had a tremendous success. In seven years he built and sold 1,000,000 Fords; by 1925 he was producing them at the rate of almost 2,000,000 a year.

He established two cardinal economic policies during this tremendous expansion: the continued cutting of the cost of the product as improved methods of production made it possible, and the payment of higher wages to his employes. By 1926 the cost of the Model T had been cut to $310, although it was vastly superior to the 1908 model. In January, 1914, he established a minimum pay rate of $5 a day for an eight-hour day, thereby creating a national sensation. Up to that time the average wage throughout his works had been $2.40 a nine-hour day.

The entire obituary is really rather fascinating reading.

Douglas Brinkley’s Wheels for the World (2003) is considered a good biography of Ford and the Ford Motor Company.

Vladimir Zworykin was born in Murom, Russia, on this date in 1889. He came to the U.S. in 1919. Zworykin’s television transmitting and receiving method using cathode ray tubes, developed in the 1920s and early 1930s, ranks him as the prime inventor of television.

“Professor” Irwin Corey, The World’s Foremost Authority, is 97 today.

Ken Burns is 58.

William Powell was born on this date in 1892. He was nominated for three best actor Academy Awards — The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936) and Life with Father (1947). Powell was Nick Charles and Myrna Loy was Nora Charles in the six Thin Man films.

The “It Girl” Clara Bow was born on this date in 1905. A huge star when movies didn’t talk, her career wound down quickly and unhappily after sound. As with many other silent film stars, it was a new medium that necessitated less physical acting, the reason they had become big stars to begin with. The clip is from It (1927).

Charlie Christian was born on this date in 1916. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 (fifth class).

Charlie Christian elevated the guitar as a lead instrument on par with the saxophone and trumpet in jazz and popular music. His single-string technique established a solo style that was carried on by such contemporaries as T-Bone Walker and emulated by later disciples like B. B. King and Chuck Berry. Born in Bonham, Texas, on July 29th, 1919, and raised in Oklahoma City, Christian was influenced by country music and jazz, an odd hybrid of influences that can be heard in his recorded works, such as “Seven Come Eleven,” with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Unfortunately, his recording career lasted less than two years, as he was brought down in his prime by tuberculosis, dying on March 2, 1942, in New York. Though his life was short, his hornlike, single-note style, which capitalized on innovations in amplification technology, revolutionized and redefined the role of the electric guitar in popular music. The reverberations from Christian’s pioneering efforts have echoed down the decades, through Western swing, rockabilly and rock and roll to the present day.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer were married 30 years ago today.

Jackie Kennedy would have been 82 today. She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on this date in 1929. She died in 1994.

Bill Bradley is 68.

Linda Kelsey, the red-headed reporter on Lou Grant, is 65. She received five Emmy nominations, but no wins.

Sally Struthers and Georgia Engel are each 63 today.

Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, is 57. Venezuela supplies about 6% of U.S. daily oil consumption.

Catherine Howard married Henry VIII on this date in 1540. She was Mrs. VIII number five.

Maximilien Robespierre got nicked with a razor on this date in 1794. Witnesses said Robespierre died within seconds of the guillotine blade severing his head from his neck but, after viewing A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Former Senator Bill Frist was certain guillotine victims “respond to visual stimuli.”

Beatrix Potter was born on this date in 1866.

Beatrix Potter thought she might become a scientist, but when she wrote a paper to present to the Royal Botanic Gardens, she was turned away because only men were allowed to present. So she continued to make detailed drawings of animals and plants, and she continued to refuse the suitors her parents brought home for her, because she didn’t want to be a Victorian housewife and raise children and have no time left for her own interests.

In 1893, Potter sent an illustrated letter to the child of her former governess, and it was in that letter that Peter Rabbit made his debut. She liked creating animal characters, writing and illustrating their stories. So she decided to write children’s books, but for years publishers didn’t take her seriously.

You’ll have to read the rest at The Writer’s Almanac (2008).

An earthquake in China killed an estimated 242,000 people 35 years ago today (1976).

Today is the birthday

… of television producer Norman Lear. He’s 89. Lear brought a revolution to TV when he introduced All in the Family in 1971. Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Maude, One Day At a Time and other shows were also his. The shows were primarily character-driven, taped before live audiences, and touched on political and social subjects previously unknown on sitcoms. Lear has also been an activist and philanthropist for First Amendment rights and other causes.

… of Jerry Van Dyke, 80. (Hey, I could do a whole another Ron Howard’s brother type thing with Dick Van Dyke’s brother. Or not.)

… of Bugs Bunny, who made his first featured appearance in a cartoon released on this date in 1940, A Wild Hare. Bugs was modeled on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar — and with a Brooklyn accent.

… of Bobbie Gentry; she is 67. No word yet on what it was she and Billy Joe threw off the Tallahatchee bridge.

… of Peggy Fleming, 63 today. Miss Fleming won her gold medal for figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics.

… of Maya Rudolph, 39.

… of Pete Yorn, 37.

… of A-Rod. Alex Rodriguez is 36. He’s really younger because “A-Rod years” didn’t used to have Octobers.

Baseball manager Leo Durocher was born 106 years ago today. His Hall-of-Fame bio reads:

Leo Durocher was a good-field, no-hit shortstop for 17 years, but gained his greatest notoriety for accomplishments after his playing days. His combative and swashbuckling style, brilliant baseball mind, uncanny memory and fiery disposition became “The Lip’s” trademarks as a colorful and controversial manager for 24 seasons with the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs and Astros. He compiled 2,009 wins in 3,740 games, captured three pennants and won the World Series in 1954. He was named Manager of the Year three times by the “Sporting News.”

The Atlanta Olympics bombing was 15 years ago today. Six-year-old Adam Walsh was kidnapped 30 years ago today.

The truce ending the Korean War was signed on this date in 1953. Read the report from The New York Times.

The first U.S. government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs (which became the Department of State), was established on this date in 1789.

… of Mick Jagger. He’s still can’t get no satisfaction, even at 68. (Especially at 68.) And time isn’t really on his side so much any more, is it?

… of Bob Lilly. He’s 72. My god the years do go by.

… of Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, 66.

… of Dorothy Hamill, 55. Another that makes one wonder where the years have gone. Her gold medal was at the 1976 Winter Olympics.

… of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. He’s 52. Spacey won for best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects and leading actor for American Beauty.

… of Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock. From Arlington, Virginia, she’s 47.

Two great comediennes were born on this date — Gracie Allen in 1895, 1897 or 1902 (her birth certificate was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake) and Vivian Vance in 1909.

Because George Burns lived to be 100 and managed to stay in show business nearly until then (playing God, no less), Gracie, who died in 1964 has been largely forgotten. She was the true comedic talent of the two, however. On their radio and television programs George was the straight man, Gracie had the good lines.

At the end of their show, George Burns would say, “Say goodnight, Gracie.” Urban myth has it that she said, “Good night Gracie,” but, in fact, she always just said “Goodnight.”

“Were you the oldest one in the family?” “No, no, my mother and father were much older.” — Gracie Allen

“They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it.” — Gracie Allen

“When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.” — Gracie Allen

Vivian Vance was two years older than her long-time co-star Lucille Ball, though many thought Vance to be much older because her I Love Lucy character Ethel Mertz was married to Fred, played by actor William Frawley, who was 18 years older. Miss Vance died of cancer in 1979.

Actor Jason Robards was born on this date in 1922. Robards won two best supporting actor Oscars and was nominated a third time. NewMexiKen liked Robards in A Thousand Clowns, but Martin Balsam got the acting Oscar for that fine film.

Humorist Jean Shepherd was born in Chicago on this date in 1921. As they so often do, The Writer’s Almanac had a nice, succinct essay (from 2004):

… He’s remembered for the autobiographical stories he told on the radio about a boy named Ralph Parker growing up in Hohman, Indiana. One of his stories was made into the movie A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated. It’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, even though every adult in his life says that he’ll shoot his eye out. The stories Shepherd told on-air were always improvised, but he later wrote them down and published them in collections like In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1967) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1972).

Shepherd said, “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856), Carl Jung (1875) and Aldous Huxley (1894) were born on July 26th. So were Blake Edwards (1922) and Stanley Kubrick (1928).

George B. McClellan took command of the Army of the Potomac 150 years ago today, five days after Bull Run (Manassas). McClellan loved to play soldier, but hated to play war.

President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. military on July 26, 1948.

Mary Jo Kopechne might have been 71 today, but she died in 1969.

The liners Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided in fog 45 miles off Nantucket 55 years ago today. The Andrea Doria went down the next day and 51 were killed.

Today is the birthday

… of basketball hall-of-famer Nate Thurmond, 70 today.

… of Joey. Matt LeBlanc is 44.

Louise Brown, the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization is 33 today.

Henry Knox was born on July 25th in 1750. He is one of the most enjoyable of the Founding Fathers. The following is taken from a longer profile at The General Henry Knox Museum:

Henry Knox was an ordinary man who rose to face extraordinary circumstances. He was born into poverty in Boston in 1750. He left Boston Latin Grammar School at a young age to apprentice to a bookbinder, helping to support his widowed mother and younger brother. He eventually worked his way to opening his own bookshop in Boston at the age of 21, little suspecting the important role that he would play in the birth of our nation. His keen interest in military strategy led him to do a lot of reading on the subject, and when he joined the local militia, his talent was noticed.

In 1775, as the situation between Great Britain and the American colonies was heating up, General George Washington inspected a rampart at Roxbury designed by Knox and was instantly taken with the young man’s abilities. Knox soon became Washington’s Chief of Artillery, and earned a place in history in the winter of 1776 by carting sixty tons of captured cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Dorchester Heights, driving the British from Boston Harbor. Throughout most of the war he was by Washington’s side, and eventually rose to Major-General. Following the war he was Washington’s choice for the first Secretary at War. They remained life-long friends.

Reportedly, General George Washington actually said this to the portly General Knox while boarding the boat to take them across the Delaware River. “Shift that fat ass, Harry. But slowly, or you’ll swamp the damned boat.”

It’s the birthdate of painter and photographer Thomas Eakins, born on this date in 1844. “Esteemed for his powers of characterization and mastery of technique, Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) is recognized as one of America’s foremost painters, a master draftsman and watercolorist, and an especially gifted photographer.” The Metropolitan Musuem of Art (source of the preceding quote) had an exhibition of Eakins’s work in 2002, which fortunately remains on line. Click the painting to see the exhibition.

The longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer was born on this date in 1902. “When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”

The alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges was born on this date in 1907.

One of the most distinctive solo voices in jazz, Hodges was inextricably bound up with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which he first joined in [M]ay 1928, remaining for most of the rest of his life, apart from a brief venture into bandleading from 1951-5. His plaintive blues playing was as memorable as his haunting ballad playing, and although he was capable of producing a tone of incredible beauty and intensity, he could also add a jazzy edge to his sound, and play in a jumping swing style.

BBC – Radio 3 Jazz Profiles

Here’s a brief but lovely sample of Hodges from iTunes. And another.

Sweetness, the great Walter Payton, was born on July 25th in 1954. He died at age 45 of a liver disease.

NewMexiKen’s father was born 88 years ago today. Miss you, Dad.

Today is the birthday

… of cartoonist Pat Oliphant, 76.

… of Ruth Buzzi, 75.

… of Kramer. Michael Richards is 62 today.

… of Lynda Carter. Wonder Woman is 60!

… of Pam Tillis, 54.

… of Barry Bonds. The best baseball player ever is 47.

… of Kristin Chenoweth. The Tony Award-winner is 43, all 4-foot-11 of her.

… of J Lo. Jennifer Lopez is 42.

… of Anna Paquin. An Oscar winner at age 11, she’s now 29.

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24th in 1897. She disappeared at age 40.

It was on this date in 1847 that Brigham Young gazed at Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake and made his famous declaration: “This is the place.”

Daniel Radcliffe is 22 today.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is 75. Ginsburg (78) and Scalia (75 in March) are older; Breyer will be 73 next month.

Actor Ronny Cox is 73. Cox, a Cloudcroft, New Mexico, native, is perhaps most famous as Lt. Andrew Bogomil of the Beverly Hills Police Department, but he has more than 120 credits listed at IMDB.

Don Imus is 71 today.

Woody Harrelson is 50. Harrelson was nominated for best actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt and won one Emmy for playing Woody on Cheers.

Saul Hudson is 46. He’s better known as Slash of Guns N’ Roses.

Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman is 44.

Alison Krauss is 40. (Get to see her in a few weeks.)

Raymond Chandler was born on July 23rd in 1888.

His parents were Irish, and after his father left the family, his mom moved them back to Ireland, and he grew up there and in England. He moved back to America and settled in California.

He wrote pulp fiction about the city of Los Angeles and a detective there named Philip Marlowe. Chandler’s first novel was The Big Sleep (1939), which sold well and was made into a movie in 1946 with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall — William Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay. Chandler wrote seven more novels featuring Philip Marlowe, who became the quintessential “hard-boiled” private eye, tough and street-smart and full of wise cracks. In Farewell, My Lovely (1940), Marlowe says: “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2010)

The Ford Motor Company sold its first automobile 108 years ago today.

And the Detroit “12th Street Riot” began on July 23rd in 1967. Before it was over 43 were dead, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned.

It’s the birthday

… of Janet Reno, the only woman attorney general of the United States. She is 73.

… of actor Edward Herrmann, either FDR or a Gilmore. He is 68.

… of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau. He’s 63.

… of Yusuf Islam, also 63. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou. Much of his life he was known as Cat Stevens and he sold 60 million albums. Stevens wrote “The First Cut is the Deepest,” a hit for four artists, most recently Sheryl Crow. In 2006, he returned to music after nearly 30 years; his new stage name is Yusuf.

… of Mork. Robin Williams is 60. Williams has been nominated for the best actor Oscar three times without winning. He did win the best supporting actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting.

… of Jon Lovitz. He’s 54. Fresh!

… of Brandi Chastain. She’s 43.

… and of C.C. Sabathia, 31.

Sara Elizabeth Dougherty was born in Copper Creek, Virginia, on July 21st 1898. She married A.P. Carter in 1915, and with his brother’s wife Maybelle Addington Carter formed the Carter Family. They made their first recordings on August 2, 1927, at the famous Bristol Sessions.

In August 1927 three musicians arrived at a makeshift recording studio in Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for a talent scout from the Victor Talking Machine Company. The songs A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and her cousin Maybelle recorded that day drew upon the rich musical traditions of their native rural Appalachia. The Carter Family sang of love and loss, desperation and joy, and their music captured the attention of a nation entering the darkest days of the depression. In the coming years, with the release of songs such as Keep on the Sunnyside, Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Wildwood Flower, Carter Family record sales exploded. Success, however, brought sorrow to the Carter’s personal lives. As the demand for their music grew, A.P. Carter traveled across the Blue Ridge mountains seeking inspiration for new songs. During his long absences Sara fell in love with A.P.’s first cousin [Coy Bays]. Sara divorced A.P. in 1936, but the trio continued performing together until their eventual disbanding in 1943.

American Experience | The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken

The timeline at the above site tells a little more of the story.

[in 1938-1939] Consolidated Royal Chemical Corporation pays the Carter Family the unheard-of sum of $75 per week, each, to do two shows a day on the border radio station XERA. The Carters move to Del Rio, Texas. Their music is broadcast by XERA’s 500 kilowatt transmitter to most of North America.

[In February 1939] Sara dedicates a song to Coy on XERA. Coy, living in California with his parents, hears the song and goes to Texas to find Sara. Coy and Sara are reunited, and marry on February 20 in Brackettsville, near Del Rio.

Ernest Hemingway was born on this date in 1899. He died a few weeks before his 62nd birthday in 1961. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.”

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 21, Ernest Hemingway [Interviewed by George Plimpton 1954]

Marshall McLuhan was born 100 years ago today.

Don Knotts was born on this date in 1924.

George McGovern, a very good man if a very poor presidential candidate, is 89 today.

A bomber pilot in World War II, he flew 29 combat missions before his plane was badly damaged over Vienna and his navigator killed. He survived a crash landing on an island in the Adriatic Sea and won a Distinguished Flying Cross before returning for five more missions. Although both of his parents were Republicans, McGovern ran for Congress in 1956 as a Democrat and won, the first South Dakota Democrat to go to the House of Representatives in 22 years. After a losing campaign in 1960, he was elected to the Senate in 1962, and, upon re-election in ’68, emerged as a leading opponent to the war in Vietnam. He said, “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

Writer’s Almanac (2008)

Florencia Bisenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona was born in El Paso 70 years ago today. We know her as Vikki Carr. She had three top 40 hits, including “It Must Be Him,” which topped at number 3 in 1966.

Ilie Năstase is 65.

Howard Schultz, the developer of Starbucks, is 58 today.

Anthony Edwards, “Goose,” is 49 today.

The artist Edgar Degas was born in Paris on this date in 1834. He is especially identified with dance as a subject. Degas is considered an Impressionist, even a founder of the school, but he rejected the term.

Sam Colt was born on this date in 1814.

Sam Colt’s success story began with the issuance of a U.S. patent in 1836 for the Colt firearm equipped with a revolving cylinder containing five or six bullets. Colt’s revolver provided its user with greatly increased firepower. Prior to his invention, only one- and two-barrel flintlock pistols were available. In the 163 years that have followed, more than 30 million revolvers, pistols, and rifles bearing the Colt name have been produced, almost all of them in plants located in the Hartford, Connecticut, area. The Colt revolving-cylinder concept is said to have occurred to Sam Colt while serving as a seaman aboard the sailing ship Corvo. There he observed a similar principle in the workings of the ship’s capstan. During his leisure hours, Sam carved a wooden representation of his idea. The principle was remarkable in its simplicity and its applicability to both longarms and sidearms.

Colt History

Nelson Mandela is 93 today.

John Glenn is 90.

Dion (DiMucci) of Dion and The Belmonts is 72.

James Brolin is 71.

Joe Torre is 71 as well.

Martha (Reeves) of Martha and The Vandellas is 70.

Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love’s supposed to be

Just like a heatwave
Burning in my heart
Can’t keep from cryin’
It’s tearing me apart

Ricky Skaggs is 57.

Vin Diesel is 44.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert is 42.

Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam is 36. She’s better known as M.I.A.

I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make ’em all day
I get one down in a second if you wait

All I wanna do is (BANG BANG BANG BANG!)
And (KA CHING!)
And take your money

Actor Hume Cronyn was born 100 years ago today. He was married to Jessica Tandy for more than 50 years. Cronyn died in 2003.

Richard Bernard Skelton was born 98 years ago today. Red Skelton was a star in movies, radio and television from the 1930s to 1960s. His variety TV show ran on CBS from 1954-1970. Skelton was on a plane I was on once. He stood up from his first class seat and did a little monologue for us folks in coach. Skelton died in 1997.

Hunter S. Thompson was born on July 18th in 1937. He committed suicide in 2005.

The assault on Fort Wagner by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was on July 18th in 1863. This is the regiment and assault depicted in the movie Glory. The unit of approximately 1,000 took casualties of 272 that day. Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor for recovering and carrying the colors at Fort Wagner. He was the first African-American to win the highest honor.

Disneyland opened 56 years ago today.

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published 60 years ago today. It’s sold about 60 million copies since.

Major John Glenn, USMC, set a transcontinental (Los Angeles to New York) speed record of 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds on this date in 1957. Average speed: 723 mph.

Phoebe Cates (Mrs. Kevin Kline) is 48 today. Will Ferrell, born and raised in Irvine, California, is 44. Football guys Barry Sanders and Jimmy Johnson are 43 and 68 respectively.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner is 55 today. He won the prize for Angels in America.

Bess Meyerson is 87 today. She was Miss America 1945, the first Jewish woman to win the title. Meyerson remained a celebrity into the 1970s, on TV games shows and in politics. I saw her at a reception when she was about 50 and she remained very, very glamorous.

Two Hollywood greats, Ruby Catherine Stevens and Virginia Katherine McMath were born on July 16th. We know Stevens better as Barbara Stanwyck, born in 1907, she was a four time best actress Oscar nominee. And we know McMath better as Ginger Rogers, born in 1911, and an Oscar winner for best actress for Kitty Foyle.

Orville Redenbacher was born in Brazil, Indiana, on July 16th in 1907. With his partner Charlie Bowman, Redenbacher developed the popcorn that bears his name. He died in his jacuzzi at age 88.

Apollo 11 left Florida for the moon on this date in 1969.

The Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Junipero Serra on this date in 1769.

Today is the birthday

… of Clive Cussler, 80.

… of Alex Karras, All-American, Heisman runner-up (and he was a lineman), Outland Award winner, NFL star (1958-1971), Monday Night Football sportscaster, TV sitcom actor and — most notably — Mongo in Blazing Saddles. He’s 76 today.

… of Tucson’s favorite daughter, Linda Ronstadt, 65 today. Miss Ronstadt has sold more than 66 million albums worldwide. The session band behind her on her third album became The Eagles.

… of Arianna Stassinopoulos, 61. Born in Greece, educated at Cambridge, wealthy by her marriage to Michael Huffington, she is an actress, commentator, author of a dozen books, re-born liberal and founder of the Huffington Post.

… of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, 60, professional wrestler and governor of Minnesota. Is this a great country, or what?

… of Forest Whitaker, 50. Whitaker has been in more than 60 films and television productions, most notably Good Morning, Vietnam, The Crying Game and as Charlie “Bird” Parker in Bird (which earned him best actor at Cannes). He won the best actor Oscar, of course, for portraying Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

… of Ray Toro, guitarist with My Chemical Romance, is 34.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born in Leiden, Netherlands, on this date in 1606.

Kelly Leak is 50 today. That’s Jackie Earle Haley who played the athlete/juvenile delinquent in the Bad News Bears movies. Haley was also Moocher in Breaking Away and more recently the pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, for which he received a best supporting actor Oscar nomination.

Sue Sylvester is 51 today. That’s Jane Lynch of Glee.

Joel Silver the movie producer is 59 today. He has been associated with Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, the Matrix, etc. More importantly he is considered the co-creator of Ultimate, the Frisbee team sport.

William Hanna, the Hanna of Hanna-Barbera, was born 101 years ago today. The team gave us The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs and Yogi Bear. Yabba dabba doo!

The 38th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford was born 98 years ago today. He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in 1913. He took the name Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr. when adopted by his stepfather as a small child (later using Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.). When Ford died in 2006 he had lived longer than any president (93 years, 165 days), passing Ronald Reagan, who died at age 93 years, four months. John Adams and Herbert Hoover both lived to be 90.

Billy the Kid, aka Billy Bonney, aka William Antrim, actual name Henry McCarty, was killed 130 years ago tonight. Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett located his escaped prisoner at Pete Maxwell’s ranch, waited in a dark bedroom, and shot him twice when he saw him outlined in the opened bedroom doorway. The Kid died without knowing who had killed him. He was 21 years old.

… was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, 99 years ago today. We, of course, know him as Woody Guthrie.

A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it, or it could be whose hungry and where their mouth is, or whose out of work and where the job is or whose broke and where the money is or whose carrying a gun and where the peace is—that’s folk lore and folks made it up because they seen that the politicians couldn’t find nothing to fix or nobody to feed or give a job of work.

Today is the birthday

… of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Patrick Stewart is 71.

… of Bob Falfa. That’s Harrison Ford. He’s 69. And yes, Ford, who at one time had been in seven of the ten top grossing films of all time, has an Oscar nomination — for best actor in Witness.

… of Roger McGuinn, an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Byrds. He’s 69.

As Roger McGuinn once said of the Byrds, “It was Dylan meets the Beatles.” The Byrds combined the upbeat, melodic pop of the Beatles with the message-oriented lyrics of Bob Dylan into a wholly original amalgam that would be branded folk-rock. If only for their harmony-rich versions of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” drenched in the 12-string jangle of McGuinn’s Rickenbacker guitar, the Byrds would have earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet the group continually broke ground during the Sixties, creating revelatory syntheses of sound that were given such hyphenated names as space-rock (“5D [Fifth Dimension]”), psychedelic-rock (“Eight Miles High”) and country-rock (their Sweethearts of the Rodeo album). At a time when rock and roll was exploding in all fronts, the Byrds led the way with an insatiable curiosity about the forms and directions pop music could take. In so doing, they became peers and equals of their mentors, Dylan and the Beatles.

… of Pedro de Pacas. Richard ‘Cheech’ Marin is 65.

… of Tony Kornheiser. He’s 63.

… of Almost Famous Cameron Crowe. The Oscar-winner (for writing Almost Famous) is 54.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 21st in 1821. This from his 1877 obituary in The New York Times:

In an article published in The New-York Times immediately before the close of the war, the characteristic types of the soldiers of the South were sketched. It was pointed out that while Virginia, and what might be called the “old South,” produced gallant soldiers and dignified gentlemen, the South-west, the rude border country, gave birth to men of reckless ruffianism and cut-throat daring. The type of the first was Gen. Robert E. Lee; that of the latter, Gen. Bedford Forrest. At the date this article was written, (March, 1865,) Forrest seems to have been considered by many as the most formidable cavalry commander then in the Armies of the South; but he was so essentially guerrilla-like in his methods of warfare, and withal was so notoriously bloodthirsty and revengeful, that it was thought he would, when the other Southern commanders surrendered, an event then seen to be inevitable, collect around him all the desperate and discontented elements of the Southern Armies and maintain a guerrilla warfare on the South-western borders. This expectation was not realized, for when the crash came, everything went down in the grand ruin, and Forrest had had more than enough fighting to satisfy him.

Forrest rose through the ranks from private to general. After the war he was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Today is the birthday

… of Bill Cosby. He’s 74.

… of Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. She’s 68.

… of Gaius Julius Caesar, born on July 12th around 100 BCE (some say July 13th). Caesar was named for his father, Gaius Julius Caesar III, and he had two sisters, both named Julia. If Caesar was named for a caesarean section, it was an ancestor’s birth, not his. The explanation for the name that Julius Caesar himself seemed to favor was that it came from the Moorish word caesai for elephant.

Caesar, of course, died on March 15, 44 BCE. Caesar never said “Et tu, Brute?” That’s Shakespeare (though not original with him). Some contemporaries said Caesar did say “καὶ σύ, τέκνον,” Greek for “You too, child.” If he said it, it may have been intended as a curse (this will happen to you) as much as a feeling of abandonment by Brutus.

It was Julius Caesar who fixed the calendar at 365 days with a leap day every fourth year. His formula had to be tweaked in 1582 with three less leap years every 400 years, but it stands pretty much as Caesar established it, the Julian Calendar, in 46 BCE.

Henry David Thoreau was born on this date in 1817; George Eastman, the inventor of roll film, in 1854; George Washington Carver in 1864; Jean Hersholt in 1886 and Buckminster Fuller in 1895. Hersholt was in 140 films, most famously as Heidi’s grandfather with Shirley Temple. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its service award for Hersholt, who was president of the Academy and longtime president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund.

Oscar Hammerstein II was born on July 12th, 1895. Hammerstein won eight Tonys and two Oscars — for “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” and “It Might as Well Be Spring.”

Arthur Andrew Kelm was born 80 years ago today. In the movies he was known as Tab Hunter.

Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi is 52. Giorgio Armani is 77.

Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899. As E.B. White we know him for Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767.