Norma Deloris Egstrom was born on May 26th in 1920. We know her as Peggy Lee. Miss Lee began with the Benny Goodman band in 1941, then recorded on her own beginning later in the 1940s. Her signature song is Little Willie John’s “Fever,” recorded by Lee in 1958. She also wrote a number of songs, including “He’s a Tramp” and “The Siamese Cat Song” for Lady and the Tramp. Lee received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Pete Kelly’s Blues.
Harold J. Smith was born in Branford, Ontario, on this date in 1912. He was a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation (Canadian Mohawk). Harry Smith boxed Golden Gloves and played lacrosse. Eventually he found his way to movies and then television where, as Jay Silverheels, he played Tonto in The Lone Ranger TV series, 1949-1957. He died in 1980.
Ben Alexander was born on this date in 1911. A veteran actor who began at age 5, Alexander is best known for playing Detective Frank Smith on the first TV run of Dragnet in the 1950s. (Harry Morgan had the Jack Webb’s sidekick role in the second run.) Alexander has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, on May 26, 1886. The biggest star on Broadway and vaudeville even before the movie The Jazz Singer in 1927, by the 1930s he was America’s most famous and highest paid entertainer. It can be said, that as Elvis Presley married country and blues, Al Jolson wedded Jewish performing style with jazz, blues and ragtime, and so made “race music” acceptable to the wider audience.
Mamie Robinson Smith was born on May 26th in 1883. She was a vaudeville performer and the first African American singer to make vocal blues recordings. Smith’s “Crazy Blues” — a Grammy Hall of Fame record and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Song That Shaped Rock and Roll — was recorded in 1920. It sold over a million copies in its first year. She was billed “Queen of the Blues” — but of course, Bessie Smith came right behind and Bessie was “Empress of the Blues.”
The Band, more than any other group, put rock and roll back in touch with its roots. With their ageless songs and solid grasp of musical idioms, the Band reached across the decades, making connections for a generation that was, as an era of violent cultural schisms wound down, in desperate search of them. They projected a sense of community in the turbulent late Sixties and early Seventies – a time when the fabric of community in the United States was fraying. Guitarist Robbie Robertson drew from history in his evocative, cinematic story-songs, and the vocal triumvirate of bassist Rick Danko, drummer Levon Helm and keyboardist Richard Manuel joined in rustic harmony and traded lines in rich, conversational exchanges. Multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson provided musical coloration in period styles that evoked everything from rural carnivals of the early 20th century to rock and roll revues of the Fifties.
Finally, the platinum edition of Fleetwood Mac came together in 1975 with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The San Francisco duo had previously cut an album together as Buckingham-Nicks. Drummer Fleetwood heard a tape of theirs at a studio he was auditioning, and the pair were drafted into the group without so much as a formal audition. This lineup proved far and away to be Fleetwood Mac’s most durable and successful. In addition to the most solid rhythm section in rock, this classic lineup contained strong vocalists and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie. Male and female points of view were offered with unusual candor on the watershed albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977).
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison 104 years ago today. (His middle name was later changed to Mitchell so his parents could name their next son Robert.)
In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America’s greatest native art forms, the western.
The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as “Stagecoach” and “Red River.” He won an Oscar as best actor for another western, “True Grit,” in 1969. Yet some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as “The Quiet Man” and “The Long Voyage Home.”
In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism.
Photographer Dorothea Lange was born on May 26th in 1895. That’s her most famous photo, “Migrant Mother,” taken in 1936.
Dancer Isadora Duncan was born on this date in 1877.
Engineer, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Roebling was born on May 26th 1837. And, according to the Smithsonian Civil War Studies :
From a hot air balloon on a sunny late-June morning in 1863, Roebling was the first to spy Robert E. Lee’s army heading toward Gettysburg. During the ensuing battle, when General Warren ordered that Little Round Top be reinforced, Roebling helped place the first cannon, which effectively defended the site and directly contributed to the subsequent Union victory. He was awarded three brevets for gallant conduct and ended his military career as a Colonel.
Roebling’s wife Emily was the younger sister of General Gouverneur K. Warren, hero of Gettysburg. Roebling served on Warren’s staff.
… of K.C. Jones, Celtics Hall-of-Famer. He’s 79 today.
… of Tom T. Hall; he’s 75. A very good reason — though any reason will do — to listen to “(Old Dogs, Children And) Watermelon Wine,” “Sneaky Snake,” “Homecoming, ” and, of course, “I Care.”
… of Ian McKellen. Gandalf and Sir Leigh Teabing is 72 today. McKellen has been nominated for two Oscars, one each for best actor and best supporting actor.
… of Frank Oz. The voice of Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover, Yoda and so many more, is 67 today.
… of Mike Myers. Austin Powers, Wayne and Shrek is 48.
… of Brian Urlacher, 33.
Miles Davis was born on this date in 1926. The web site for JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns has a brief introduction to Miles Davis.
Babe Ruth hit the 714th (and last) home run of his career on this date in 1935. He also hit 713 and 712 that day.
Jay Leno debuted as host of “The Tonight Show” 19 years ago tonight.
Jewel is 37 today. Joan Collins is 78. Drew Carey is 53.
Jewel’s last name is Kilcher.
Lauren Chapin, who played the youngest daughter, Kathy or Kitten, on “Father Knows Best,” is 66.
Benjamin Sherman Crothers — known to us better as Scatman Crothers — was born May 23rd in 1910. Crothers is best remembered as the permissive orderly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the concerned chef in The Shining and as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man. He was also a successful composer and singer and did a number of cartoon voices. The nickname Scatman came from his scat singing. Crothers died in 1986.
James Buchanan Eads was born on this date in 1820. He was named for the politician, later president, his mother’s cousin. An engineer, Eads built ironclad gunboats for the Union during the Civil War. He constructed the first road and rail bridge across the Mississippi River —
What Eads did was to offer to build a bridge that was quite revolutionary. Instead of a truss design, the conventional form for railway bridges at the time, he suggested building an arched bridge, with spans in excess of 500 feet. To make sure it was strong enough, he wanted to build the arches of steel that was stronger than the wrought iron typically used in railroad bridges. To experienced bridge-builders, Eads’ bridge may have seemed as crazy as building a railway line to transport ocean-liners seems to us today. One critic wrote: “I deem it entirely unsafe and impracticable.” Arrogant and vain, Eads belittled his opponents and insisted on the infallibility of his calculations and the laws of physics. He proved himself right. Though the bridge took seven years to construct and cost more than a dozen men’s lives, it was a magnificent structure. And unlike scores of 19th century truss bridges that collapsed under the weight of trains, the Eads bridge still stands to this day.
Eads also designed the system of jetties that made the Mississippi River navigable from New Orleans to the Gulf year-round. At certain seasons the river would be too shallow; the jetties sped the current and scoured and deepened the channel — and, of course, changed nature in ways we must deal with today.
Clyde Champion Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on May 23rd in 1934. The FBI has a web page with details about Bonnie and Clyde, including a photo of each. Not exactly Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman (who portrayed Clyde’s brother Buck). All three were nominated for an acting Oscar, as were Michael J. Pollard and Estelle Parsons. Parsons, who played Buck’s wife Blanche in the 1967 film, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
William Harvey Carney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on May 23rd in 1900 — for duty performed nearly 37 years earlier at Fort Wagner, S.C. Sergeant Carney was the first African-American to receive the Medal of Honor. Carney was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, the regiment whose story was told in the film Glory (1989) with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick. Carney was not portrayed in the film by name. The citation for Carney’s Medal of Honor reads: “When the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.”
James Stewart was born 103 years ago today. Stewart received five best actor Oscar nominations in his long career, but won only for The Philadelphia Story in 1941.
Joe Cocker is 67. Timothy Olyphant is scowling at being 43.
Cher is 65.
Charles Lindbergh departed Long Island for Paris 84 years ago today.
Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland on May 20th in 1932, the first woman to solo the Atlantic.
31 years ago today the Mount St. Helens volcano exploded, killing or hiding 57 people.
Maude’s husband, Walter, is 89. That’s actor Bill Macy, still adding to his credits last year. He was a character named Whiskey Pete on My Name Is Earl a couple of years ago. His name at birth: Wolf Marvin Garber.
Dobie Gillis is 77. That’s actor Dwayne Hickman who played the high school chum of Maynard G. Krebs when he was 25 (and Bob Denver was 24).
Brooks Robinson is 74.
Known as The Human Vacuum Cleaner, Brooks Robinson established a standard of excellence for modern-day third basemen. He played 23 seasons for the Orioles, setting Major League career records for games, putouts, assists, chances, double plays and fielding percentage. A clutch hitter, Robinson totaled 268 career home runs, at one time an American League record for third basemen. Robinson earned the league’s MVP Award in 1964 and the World Series MVP in 1970, when he hit .429 and made a collection of defensive gems.
Reggie Jackson earned the nickname Mr. October for his World Series heroics with both the A’s and Yankees. In 27 Fall Classic games, he amassed 10 home runs — including four in consecutive at-bats — 24 RBIs and a .357 batting average. As one of the game’s premier power hitters, he blasted 563 career round-trippers. A terrific player in the clutch and an intimidating cleanup hitter, Jackson compiled a lifetime slugging percentage of .490 and earned American League MVP honors in 1973.
Frank Capra was born in Bisaquino, Sicily on this date in 1897.
He was the first to win three directorial Oscars — for “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” (1936) and “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938). The motion picture academy also voted the first and third movies the best of the year.
Capra movies were idealistic, sentimental and patriotic. His major films embodied his flair for improvisation and spontaneity, buoyant humor and sympathy for the populist beliefs of the 1930’s.
Generations of moviegoers and television viewers have reveled in the hitch-hiking antics of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night;” in Gary Cooper’s whimsical self-defense of Longfellow Deeds at a hilarious sanity hearing in “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town;” in the impassioned filibuster by James Stewart as an incorruptible Senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” in Mr. Cooper’s battle to prevent a power-crazed industrialist from taking dictatorial control of the country in “Meet John Doe,” and in Mr. Stewart’s salvation by a guardian angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Enya is 50. I confess to sort of liking her sound, but jeez does every song have to sound like every other?
Jane Parker (Tarzan’s Jane) and Mia Farrow’s mom was born on this date in 1911. That’s actress Maureen O’Sullivan.
One of the brightest of ingenues, the actress appeared in more than 60 films, from ”Tugboat Annie” to ”Pride and Prejudice,” starring with everyone from Robert Taylor to the Marx Brothers. But she was always identified with the lovely, legendary Jane, teaching the niceties of civilization and romance to the yowling Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s King of the Jungle. It was a notable pairing of opposites.
Her other movie successes included ”The Thin Man,” ”The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” Greta Garbo’s ”Anna Karenina,” ”A Day at the Races,” ”A Yank at Oxford,” ”The Crowd Roars” and ”David Copperfield” (with W. C. Fields).
Horace E. Dodge was born on May 17th in 1868; he should have been built Ford-tough, Dodge died at age 52. With his brother John, the Dodge Brothers supplied early automakers with engines, including Ford and Olds. In 1914, they began building their own vehicles, with a much more modern design. Ford bought out the Dodges, who were partners in the Ford Motor Company, for $25 million. John died in January 1920; Horace in December. Their widows eventually sold to Chrysler.
The New York Stock Exchange was founded on what is now Wall Street on May 17th in 1792.
Henry Fonda was born May 16, 1905, in Grand Island, Nebraska. Seems hard to believe but Fonda was only nominated for an acting Oscar twice — for Grapes of Wrath and On Golden Pond. He won for the latter in 1982, a few months before his death. Particular favorite Fonda films (other than those two): 12 Angry Men, Mister Roberts, My Darling Clementine (he played Wyatt Earp), The Ox-Bow Incident (with sidekick Harry Morgan, aka Col. Sherman Potter) and, maybe best of all, as Clarence Earl Gideon in Gideon’s Trumpet (made when Fonda was 75).
Actress Debra Winger and gymnast Olga Korbut both turn 56 today. Winger has been nominated for the best actress Oscar three times — Shadowlands (1993), Terms of Endearment (1983) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Korbut is the Belarusian gymnast who, pixie-like, revolutionized gymnastics. She became it’s first TV superstar while winning three gold medals and one silver at the 1972 Olympic Games. For a few days she was the talk of the planet.
Elsewhere, Rep. John Conyers from Detroit is 82, Pierce Brosnan is 58, Janet Jackson is 45, Gabriela Sabatini is 41 and Tori Spelling is 38.
Megan Fox is 25.
Woody Herman (1913) and Billy Martin (1928) were born on May 16. So was William Henry Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state. Seward was also governor of New York (1839-1842) and U.S. senator (1849-1861). Seward was stabbed several times in the head and neck as part of the Lincoln assassination plot but recovered. He was born in 1801.
“Pet Sounds” was released 45 years ago today; so was “Blonde on Blonde.”
Born Israel Beilin in a Russian Jewish shtetl in 1888, he died as Irving Berlin in his adopted homeland of New York, New York, USA, in 1989. Songwriter, performer, theatre owner, music publisher, soldier and patriot, he defined Jerome Kern’s famous maxim: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.” Berlin wrote over 1200 songs, including “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Always,” “Blue Skies,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and “God Bless America.” He wrote the scores to more than a dozen Broadway musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun, and provided songs for dozens of Hollywood movie musicals. Among his many awards and accolades were the Academy Award for “White Christmas,” a Congressional Gold Medal, a special Tony Award and commemoration on a 2002 U.S. postage stamp.
The Library of Congress has a page on the composition of God Bless America.
… of Mike Wallace; 93 today. 60 Minutes is the only place where the average age is higher than that of the College of Cardinals.
… of Glenda Jackson; 75 today. Ms. Jackson has four Oscar nominations, two of them winners for best actress — Women In Love and A Touch of Class.
… of Albert Finney; he’s 75 as well. Finney has been nominated for an Oscar five times, but no wins.
… of Sonny Curtis; 74 today. Curtis started out with Buddy Holly but earned fame as a songwriter — I Fought the Law and the Law Won. It’s Curtis who wrote — and who sang — Love Is All Around. You know, the theme song from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to fake it.
You can have the town, why don’t you take it.
You’re gonna make it after all
… of James L. Brooks; he’s 71. Brooks won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay for Terms of Endearment. He received nominations in various categories for Broadcast News, Jerry Maguire and As Good as It Gets, too. For my money, I like his work as executive producer of Mary Tyler Moore and, of course, The Simpsons.
… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Richie Furay; 67 today. Furay, Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Stephen Stills and Neil Young were the founders of Buffalo Springfield.
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
… of Candace Bergen; she’s 65. Ms. Bergen was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1980 for Starting Over.
… of Billy Joel; 62 today. If you need a couple notes of Billy Joel, click here.
… of Kermit (yeah, that Kermit). He’s 56 today. Maybe it is easy being green. The original Kermit was made from a coat belonging to Jim Henson’s mother.
… of Tony Gwynn, 51.
A star baseball and basketball player in college, Tony Gwynn opted for the diamond and fashioned a stellar 20-year career with the San Diego Padres. Gwynn’s mastery of slapping the ball between the third baseman and shortstop, what the lefty called the “5.5 hole,” propelled him to 3,141 career hits, a lifetime .338 batting average and eight batting crowns, an NL record he shares with Honus Wagner. A true student of hitting, Gwynn was an early advocate of using videotape to study his swing, while his five outfield Gold Glove Awards, 319 career stolen bases and 15 All-Star Game selections attest to his superior all-around play.
John Brown was born on May 9th in 1800. The American Experience has a good biographical essay on Brown.
He has been called a saint, a fanatic, and a cold-blooded murderer. The debate over his memory, his motives, about the true nature of the man, continues to stir passionate debate. It is said that John Brown was the spark that started the Civil War. Truly, he marked the end of compromise over the issue of slavery, and it was not long after his death that John Brown’s war became the nation’s war.
J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie was born in Scotland on May 9th in 1860. His Peter Pan first appeared in 1902 in a book of children’s stories, The Little White Bird. In 1904 Barrie produced the play “Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.”
And on May 9th, 1950:
A fire crew fighting the Capitan Gap fire in Lincoln National Forest rescues a bear cub clinging to a tree. The burned animal later became known as Smokey Bear and the cub grew into a national symbol for the prevention of forest fires. The bear lived on and later died of natural causes and his body was returned from Washington, D.C., to be buried in the same area of the Lincoln fire.
Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Willie Mays is 80 today, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bob Seger is 66, and five-time Oscar nominee (one win) George Clooney is 50.
Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, played with enthusiasm and exuberance while excelling in all phases of the game — hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing and baserunning. His staggering career statistics include 3,283 hits and 660 home runs. The Giants superstar earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 and two MVP Awards. He accumulated 12 Gold Gloves, played in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and participated in four World Series. His catch of Vic Wertz’s deep fly in the ’54 Series remains one of baseball’s most memorable moments.
Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. To many who grew up with television, Welles was simply the larger-than-life spokesman for Paul Masson Wines — “We will sell no wine before its time.” But at age 23 Welles had scared thousands of Americans with his realistic radio production of War of the Worlds. At 25 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in what many consider the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. For that film alone, he was nominated for the Oscar for best actor, best director, best original screenplay and best picture (he won, with Herman Mankiewicz, for screenplay). Welles was nominated for the best picture Oscar again the following year — The Magnificent Ambersons.
Rudolph Valentino was born on May 6 in 1895.
The founder of the Bank of America and hero of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake recovery, Amadeo Peter Giannini was born on May 6 in 1870.
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6th in 1856.
Englishman Roger Bannister ran the first recorded sub-four-minute mile — 3:59.4 — 56 years ago today. Bannister’s record lasted only 46 days, when Australian John Landy ran 3:58.0. The current world record is 3:43.13 held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj (who also holds the 1500 and 2000 meter world records). The four-minute-mile was such a symbolic barrier that Bannister was Sports Illustrated’s first ever Sportsman of the Year.
74-years-ago today the German passenger airship LZ 129 caught fire during mooring. 36 were killed — 13 of the 36 passengers, 22 of the 61 crew, and one ground crew member. The Hindenburg did not explode because it was filled with hydrogen as long thought. The outer skin of the aircraft — longer than three 747s — was painted with an iron oxide, powdered aluminum compound to reflect sunlight (to minimize heat build up). The powdered aluminum was highly flammable and was ignited by an electrostatic charge in the imperfectly grounded zeppelin.
How flammable is iron oxide and aluminum? It’s the fuel used to launch the Shuttle.
And Ken, official oldest child of NewMexiKen, celebrates his birthday today. Happy Birthday Ken!
He is an American icon; his voice as comforting as the American landscape, his songs as familiar as the color of the sky, his face as worn as the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps that’s why Dan Rather suggested, “We should add his face to the cliffs of Mt. Rushmore and be done with it.”
He’s recorded 250 albums, written 2,500 songs, and for half a century played countless concerts across America and around the world. He’s been instrumental in shaping both country and pop music, yet his appeal crosses all social and economic lines. Sometimes he’s called an outlaw, though from Farm Aid to the aftermath of September 11, from the resurrection of a burned-out courthouse in his own hometown to fanning the flame of the Olympics, it is Willie Nelson who brings us together.
Perhaps Emmylou Harris said it best: “If America could sing with one voice, it would be Willie’s.”
Not only that, but Cloris Leachman is 85 and Kirsten Dunst is 29.
Annie Dillard is 66 today. Ms. Dillard won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974). The New York Times has a page with links to several reviews and articles about Dillard and her works. (Eudora Welty wrote the review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.) And Ms. Dillard has a web site.
Basketball hall-of-famer Isiah Thomas turns 50 today.
Dianna Agron is 25. And that fills me with Glee.
Furthermore . . .
Radio and television actress Eve Arden was born on April 30th in 1908. To my generation she was Our Miss Brooks, English teacher at Madison High. The show was on radio from 1948-1957 and TV from 1952-1956. Many considered it a breakthrough character for women. That’s Our Miss Brooks in the photo with Richard Crenna as Walter Denton and Gale Gordon as Principal Osgood Conklin.
Casey Jones wrecked his train on April 30th in 1900.
John Luther Jones from Cayce (pronounced Cay-see), Kentucky, famous to us through song as a brave engineer who romantically died trying to make up time. In truth, he crashed his locomotive at high speed into a freight train that was attempting to get out of the way on a siding. According to reports he failed to heed warning signals that were out. The accident took place early in the morning of April 30, 1900. Jones was the only fatality. Jones was known for his affability and his skill in blowing a train whistle. His engine wiper, Wallace Saunders, reportedly idolized the engineer. Saunders wrote the original song. All you might want to know can be found in this 1928 article.
George Washington took office as the first president of the U.S. on this date in 1789. His term began March 4th, but because neither the House nor Senate achieved a quorum until April, Washington’s unanimous election on February 4, wasn’t made official until April 14. Washington immediately departed Mount Vernon for New York to take the oath and was met along the way with parades and dinners in every little town. As James Madison noted, Washington was about the only aspect of the new government that really appealed to people.
Louisiana entered the union as the 18th state on this date in 1812.
It’s not just Earth Day, it’s Jack Nicholson’s birthday. He is 74 today.
Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award 12 times, eight times for best actor in a leading role and four times for best actor in a supporting role. He won for best actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976) and As Good As It Gets (1998). He won for best supporting actor for Terms of Endearment (1984). Nicholson has been nominated for an Oscar for films made in the 60s (Easy Rider), 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s (About Schmidt).
The best actress Oscar went to a co-star each time Nicholson won — Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment and Helen Hunt for As Good As It Gets.
According to IMDB, Nicholson “was raised believing his grandmother was his mother and his mother was his older sister. The truth was revealed to him years later when a Time magazine researcher uncovered the truth while preparing a story on the star.”
Estelle Harris is 79 today. She played Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld.
Glen Campbell is 75 today.
Peter Frampton is 61.
Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona, on this date in 1922.
Irascible, demanding, bullying, and probably a genius, Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a legacy that became universally lauded only after he was no longer around to bug people. As a bassist, he knew few peers, blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of rhythm, capable of elevating the instrument into the front line of a band. But had he been just a string player, few would know his name today. Rather, he was the greatest bass-playing leader/composer jazz has ever known, one who always kept his ears and fingers on the pulse, spirit, spontaneity, and ferocious expressive power of jazz.
Pithecanthropus Erectus already on the CD player
And I just push that remote button to sublimity
And listen to the sweet sculptural rhythms of Charles Mingus
And J.R. Monterose and Jackie Mclean
Duet on those saxophones
And the sound makes it’s way outta the window
Minglin’ with the traffic noises outside, you know and
All of a sudden I’m overcome by a feelin’ of brief mortality
‘Cause I’m gettin’ on in the world
Comin’ up on forty-one years
Forty-one stoney gray steps towards the grave
You know the box, awaits it’s grissly load
Now, I’m gonna be food for worms
And just like Charles Mingus wrote
That beautiful piece-a music, ‘Epitaph for Eric Dolphy’
I say, so long Eric, so long, John Coltrane
And Charles Mingus, so long, Duke Ellington
And Lester Young, so long, Billie Holliday
And Ella Fitzgerald, so long, Jimmy Reed
So long, Muddy Waters, and so, long Howlin’ Wolf
“Woke Up This Morning” A3 (Alabama 3) [Longer version of The Sopranos theme]
J. Robert Oppenheimer was born on April 22nd in 1904. Oppenheimer headed the Manhattan Project.
A brilliant nuclear physicist, with a comprehensive grasp of his field, Dr. Oppenheimer was also a cultivated scholar, a humanist, a linguist of eight tongues and a brooding searcher for ultimate spiritual values. And, from the moment that the test bomb exploded at Alamogordo, N.M., he was haunted by the implications for man in the unleashing of the basic forces of the universe.
As he clung to one of the uprights in the desert control room that July morning and saw the mushroom clouds rising in the explosion, a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita, the Hindu sacred epic, flashed through his mind. He related it later as:
“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.”
And as the black, then gray, atomic cloud pushed higher above Point Zero, another line–“I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds”–came to him from the same scripture.
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith is 85 today.
Her actual name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. She signs Elizabeth R (R for Regina, Latin for Queen).
. . . was born on this date in 1838. The following is from the autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt (1913):
When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite, with John Muir. Of course of all people in the world he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite. He told me that when Emerson came to California he tried to get him to come out and camp with him, for that was the only way in which to see at their best the majesty and charm of the Sierras. But at the time Emerson was getting old and could not go.
John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days’ trip. The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages. Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening, and again, with a burst of wonderful music, at dawn.
I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about them. The hermit-thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs everything. The only birds he noticed or cared for were some that were very conspicuous, such as the water-ouzels always particular favorites of mine too. The second night we camped in a snow-storm, on the edge of the cañon walls, under the spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir; and next day we went down into the wonderland of the valley itself. I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir and in the Yellowstone with John Burroughs.
This photo was taken in 2005 from the attic of John Muir’s home, directly above his study, or what he called his “scribble den.” Muir lived in the home in Martinez, California, from 1890 until his death in 1914. Most of his most important work was done while living and working here, though of course he travelled widely.
The service station appears to be a more recent addition to the neighborhood. One imagines that the conservationist would appreciate the convenience of being able to walk across the street for a half-gallon of milk or a Slushee, or to fill up the family SUV.
(The photo was taken through a window pane.)
This is the study where John Muir produced some of the classics of American nature writing.
Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?
The metal cup on the desk, easily hung on a belt, was a badge of membership in the Sierra Club, which Muir co-founded in 1892.
In the bowl on the mantle were balls of dried bread; Muir’s snack food.
I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it …
Ron Howard is no doubt celebrating his brother’s 52nd birthday today.
Ron Howard’s brother has more than 200 film and television credits including roles in many of his brother’s films — Cocoon, Apollo 13, Cinderella Man and Frost/Nixon come to mind. Many will remember Ron Howard’s brother also as the 8-year-old kid in the TV series Gentle Ben. Howard’s younger sibling was also the voice of Roo in the Disney Winnie the Pooh films, and more recently the voice of the balloon man in Curious George.
. . . of two-time Oscar nominee James Woods. He’s 64.
. . . of Rick Moranis, 58.
. . . of Daphne Moon. Jane Leeves of “Frasier” is 50.
. . . of Conan O’Brien. He’s 48.
. . . of America Ferrera; anything but ugly, Betty is 27. Ms. Ferrera is of Honduran descent.
Lawyer and author Clarence Darrow was born on this date in 1857.
Darrow became famous for defending some of the most unpopular people of his time. In the 1925 Monkey Trial, he defended high school teacher John Scopes for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in a Tennessee school. In “The Crime of the Century,” in 1924, he successfully defended two confessed teenage murderers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, from receiving the death penalty.
. . .
He once said: “I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.”
April 15th is the birthday of Emma Thompson and of Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson. The actresses are 52 and 21.
Emma Thompson has been nominated four times for an acting Oscar, winning best actress in a leading role for Howards End. She also won the screen adaptation Oscar for Sense and Sensibility. She’s delightful as Nanny McPhee.
Emma Watson is known primarily for just one character so far in her acting career, that of Hermione Granger.
Bessie Smith earned the title of “Empress of the Blues” by virtue of her forceful vocal delivery and command of the genre. Her singing displayed a soulfully phrased, boldly delivered and nearly definitive grasp of the blues. In addition, she was an all-around entertainer who danced, acted and performed comedy routines with her touring company. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African-American entertainer before her.
. . .
Some of her better-known sides from the Twenties include “Backwater Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” “St. Louis Blues” (recorded with Louis Armstrong), and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” The Depression dealt her career a blow, but Smith changed with the times by adapting a more up-to-date look and revised repertoire that incorporated Tin Pan Alley tunes like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” On the verge of the Swing Era, Smith died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, in September 1937. She left behind a rich, influential legacy of 160 recordings cut between 1923 and 1933. Some of the great vocal divas who owe a debt to Smith include Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. In Joplin’s own words of tribute, “She showed me the air and taught me how to fill it.”
. . . Bessie could sing it all, from the lowdown moan of “St. Louis Blues” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” to her torch treatment of the jazz standard “After You’ve Gone” to the downright salaciousness of “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl.” Covering a time span from her first recordings in 1923 to her final session in 1933, this is the perfect entry-level set to go with. Utilizing the latest in remastering technology, these recordings have never sounded quite this clear and full, and the selection — collecting her best-known sides and collaborations with jazz giants like Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Goodman — is first-rate. If you’ve never experienced the genius of Bessie Smith, pick this one up and prepare yourself to be devastated.
And, there is no more important recording in American musical history than Smith and Armstrong’s “St. Louis Blues.”
In listening to the earliest recordings, keep in mind there were no microphones until 1925. The artists sang or played and the sound was recorded acoustically, i.e., without electrical amplification.
And Thomas Hart Benton was born on this date in 1889.
Named after his great-uncle, Missouri’s first senator, Thomas Hart Benton was born on 15 April 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, an Ozark town of 2,000 people. … In 1935 they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where Benton directed the Art Institute until 1941, and where he contiued to live for the rest of his life. Albert Barnes, the Philadelphia collector, purchased some of his paintings, which raised the level of public success for the artist. Benton published his autobiography, An Artist in America, in 1937. He completed several murals in the midwest and on the east coast. Shortly before Harry Truman’s death in December 1972, Benton finished a portrait of the former President. Thomas Hart Benton died on 19 January 1975 in Kansas City, the day he completed a large mural for the Country Music Foundation of Nashville.
. . . of Paul Sorvino. The 72-year-old actor has more than 100 credits at IMDB, including a season as Detective Sergeant Philip “Phil” Cerreta on Law & Order and Henry Kissinger in Nixon.
. . . of Wally Cleaver. Tony Dow is 66. That’s him in the photo.
. . . of Al Green, staying together at 65.
With his incomparable voice, full of falsetto swoops and nuanced turns of phrase, Al Green rose to prominence in the Seventies. One of the most gifted purveyors of soul music, Green has sold more than 20 million records. During 1972 and 1973, he placed six consecutive singles in the Top Ten: “Let’s Stay Together,” “Look What You Done for Me,” “I’m Still in Love With You,” “You Ought to Be With Me,” “Call Me” and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” “Let’s Stay Together” topped the pop chart for one week and the R&B charts for nine; it was also revived with great success by Tina Turner in 1984. In terms of popularity and artistry, Green was the top male soul singer in the world, voluntarily ending his reign with a move from secular to gospel music in 1979.
. . . of Rick Schroeder. Just nine when he won a Golden Globe, he’s 41 now.
It’s also the birthday of playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett, born on this date in 1906. Waiting for Godot was published in 1952.
And it is the birthday of the man who invented Scrabble.
Alfred M. Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York (1899). He was an architect, but during the Depression he was out of a job and decided he’d invent an adult game. He classified games into three groups—chance, skill and a combination of both—and decided that the last was the most promising. He went methodically through the dictionary and several popular newspapers and counted by hand the frequency of letter usage to come up with the point value for each letter.
He trademarked the game in 1949. He had trouble selling it to major board game companies, but a friend of his decided to produce it on an assembly line in an abandoned schoolhouse. The first few years, only a few thousand copies of the game were sold, but in the 1950’s the president of Macy’s played the game on vacation and got hooked. He ordered more for his store, and Scrabble became a great success.
Alfred Butts enjoyed playing Scrabble with his wife, who was a good opponent. He said, “Nina knows more words and spells better than I, but my architectural training helps me to plan better.” The game has been beloved by many writers, including the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who had a special Russian version made for himself and his wife.
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th in 1743. [It was April 2nd on the calendar when he was born, but it’s that old Julian-Gregorian thing again.]
Eight-three years later, at the end of his remarkable life, he wished to be remembered foremost for those actions that appear as his epitaph:
Author of the Declaration of American Independence of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.
At a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel laureates in 1962, President Kennedy remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Despite serious flaws, Jefferson remains one of the most remarkable Americans.
In addition to being a writer, Jefferson was also a hard-nosed politician, lawyer, naturalist, musician, architect, geographer, inventor, scientist, paleontologist, and philosopher. Jefferson filled his house with scientific gadgets and inventions, collected mastodon bones, and kept detailed notes on the most obscure details of his life, including the daily fluctuation of the barometric pressure. After he missed the start of the solar eclipse in 1811, he designed his own more accurate astronomical clock. He composed all his papers in later life with a device that allowed him to write with two pens at the same time, so that he could keep copies of all the papers he produced.
It seems to NewMexiKen that the country could use a federal holiday during that long spell from Washington’s Birthday to Memorial Day — for shopping and sales and stuff. I propose that April 13th, Jefferson’s birthday, would be ideal.
Click on the image of the document to view Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. The photo of Jefferson’s tomb above taken by NewMexiKen, 2001.
. . . of Ravi Shankar. Norah Jones’ father is 91. That’s Ravi with daughter Anoushka Shankar last year. Click the link. The music is lovely.
Shankar is not one-dimensional. Apart from pursuing a career as a classical performer, he has also experimented outside this field. For this reason he has attracted criticism from purists. Some of this, especially during the Beatles era, undoubtedly had an element of jealousy to it; some was certainly warranted, because Shankar did take many chances. In fact, that was one of the things that kept his music exciting. To use a cricketing image — baseball would be wholly inappropriate — Shankar’s batting average has remained high throughout a long and illustrious career.
. . . of Hendley “The Scrounger,” Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford. That’s James Garner, 83 today. He was born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma.
. . . of Trapper. Wayne Rogers is 78.
. . . of California Governor Jerry Brown. He is 73.
. . . of Francis Ford Coppola. The Oscar-winning writer and director is 72. Coppola has been nominated 14 times overall, winning five, three for writing (Patton, Godfather and Godfather II). He won the best director and best picture Oscars for Godfather II.
. . . of David Frost. The journalist and television celebrity is 72.
. . . of Russell Crowe. The 3-time best actor Oscar nominee is 47. He won for Gladiator.
. . . of Tiki and Ronde. The Barber brothers are 72 today.
John McGraw was born on April 7th in 1873.
John McGraw was the fiery third baseman of the Baltimore Orioles in the 1890s, but he achieved much more recognition as an innovative, autocratic field manager. In his 31 years at the helm of the New York Giants, Little Napoleon’s teams won 10 pennants, finished second 11 times and took home three World Series trophies. He ranks second all-time with 2,840 wins. As a player, he was credited with helping to develop the hit-and-run, the Baltimore chop, the squeeze play and other strategic moves.
Eleanora Fagan was born on this date in 1915. We know her as Billie Holiday.
Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.
Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married three years after she was born.
The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
. . .
At Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer. She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down. The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly assured him that she could. She sang “Trav’lin’ All Alone” and then “Body and Soul” and got a job–$2 a night for six nights a week working from midnight until about 3 o’clock the next afternoon.
Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was the leader on occasional recording sessions.
She made her first recording, “Your Mother’s Son-in-Law” in November, 1933, singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr. Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.
Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members of Count Basie’s band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She was particularly close to Mr. Basie’s tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young.
It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz circles–Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was identified by jazz bands, “Pres.” She was the vocalist with the Basie band for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months with Artie Shaw’s band.
Radio and television actress Eve Arden was born on April 30th in 1908. To my generation she was Our Miss Brooks, English teacher at Madison High. The show was on radio from 1948-1957 and TV from 1952-1956. Many considered it a breakthrough character for women. That’s Our Miss Brooks in the photo with Richard Crenna as Walter Denton and Gale Gordon as Principal Osgood Conklin. 
Today is also the birthday
. . . of 
Eleanora Fagan was born on this date in 1915. We know her as Billie Holiday.