Category: Birthdays

My favorite non-fiction writer, John McPhee is 80 today.

He writes for The New Yorker and has published more than 30 books, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. His most recent collection of essays is Silk Parachute (March 2010).

His father was a doctor of sports medicine, so McPhee grew up on the Princeton campus knowing, he said, “the location of every urinal and every pool table.” As a kid he spent football games on the field. One day the weather was bad and he was wet, cold, and miserable. He looked up and saw writers in the press box — warm, dry, and comfortable. He decided he would become a writer. He wrote a novel for his senior thesis at Princeton. It wasn’t very good, but he said, “You just don’t sit there and write thirty thousand words without learning something.”

He was rejected by The New Yorker for 10 years before publishing an article there. He said, “I used to paper my wall with rejection slips. And they were not making a mistake.” They made him a staff writer in 1965.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Jim Bouton, pitcher and author of Ball Four, is 72.

Micky Dolenz of the Monkees is 66 today.

Baseball hall-of-famer Jim Rice is 58.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was born on this date in 1841. Three times wounded in the Civil War, Holmes survived to become a prominent legal scholar, Chief Judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1902-1932. He is considered one of the greatest of the Supreme Court justices.

But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done…. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force…. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenck v. United States, Baer v. United States, 249 U.S. 52 (1919).

Harry Belafonte is 84 today.

Ron Howard’s brother’s only brother is 57.

Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach) is 57.

Javier Bardem is 42.

Well-known Americans of the 20th century born on this date include band-leader Glenn Miller (1904), author Ralph Ellison (1914), poet Robert Lowell (1917), Mad magazine publisher William M. Gaines (1922) and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (1926).

And it is my brother Lee’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Middle Bro.

Lee hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 2002, amazingly enough providing a journal along the way (on the tiniest of keyboards). Here’s my favorite excerpt:

For the first time since I began this Odyssey I fear my life-long dream to do a single season thruhike of the Pacific Crest Trail could be in serious jeopardy.

Four consecutive days of 110 degrees didn’t stop me.

Streams deep and icy enough to make all men equal didn’t stop me.

High mountain passes clogged with ice and snow didn’t stop me.

Rattlesnakes, cougars, bears, howling packs of coyotes, ticks, wasps, bees, hornets, gnats, biting flies, and mosquitoes did not deter me.

Raging fires with smoke thick enough to give me headaches and a sore throat have not chased me off the trail.

God help me even a broken heart didn’t stop me.

So what insidious thing could hold me back on the threshold of my dream? The huckleberry!

“But how,” you ask? By slowing my progress to a veritable standstill! One can walk by only by so many bushes teeming with these succulent purple orbs of orgiastic delight without stopping! My God, I’m not made of stone!

So my pace seems to be half of what it was. Instead of the mighty 30 mile days I had looked forward to in Oregon I will be very lucky to eke out a meager 15 or less. There just isn’t enough time to reach British Columbia before winter sets in. I fear the only hope to salvage my trek may be to enlist the aid of a top-notch hypnotist to attempt to persuade my subconscious that I really don’t like wild huckleberries, at least until I get to Manning Park. Drastic measures indeed, but what else can I do?

Today is the birthday

… of Helen Gurley Brown, 89.

… of Oscar winner George Kennedy. Dragline is 86. Kennedy won the best supporting actor Oscar for that role in Cool Hand Luke.

… of Toni Morrison, “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” That’s what they said when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She’s 80 today.

… of the woman who broke up the Beatles. She’s 78 today. That’s Yoko Ono.

… of Cybill Shepherd. She’s 61.

… of Juice Newton. She’s 59.

… of Vinnie Barbarino. He’s 57 today. So are Vincent Vega, Chili Palmer, Michael, Buford ‘Bud’ Uan Davis, Tod Lubitch, Danny Zuko and Tony Manero. And so is John Travolta.

… of the letter turner. Vanna White is 54 today.

… of one-time Oscar nominee Matt Dillon, 47.

… of Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is 46.

… of Molly Ringwald. She’s 43.

Wallace Stegner was born on this date in 1909.

Enzo Ferrari was born on February 18, 1898. I only mention him so I can post the car porn (above).

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born on February 18, 1848.

Mr. Tiffany’s paintings in oils and water-colors were chiefly of Oriental scenes. He also executed decorative work and is best known for his work in glass. He devised new formulas for decorative designs in this medium know as “Tiffany Favrile glass.” It was produced by the Tiffany Studios, of which he was president and art director.

Mr. Tiffany also was vice president and director of Tiffany & Co., jewelers, and vice president and director of Tiffany & Co. Safe Deposit Company.

From his 1933 New York Times obituary

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published February 18, 1885.

Today is the birthday

… of Richard Ford. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist is 67.

When he was a boy, his mother told him that their neighbor across the street was a writer. He wasn’t really sure what that meant, but he could tell it was something important from the way she said it. It turned out that neighbor was Eudora Welty. Ford went to the same elementary school as Welty, and they even had some of the same teachers. But he didn’t meet her until many years later.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

… of LeVar Burton. Kunta Kinte is 54.

… of Ice-T. Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is 53. His real name is Tracy Marrow and his son is Tracy Marrow Jr., not Ice-T Jr.

… of John McEnroe. The tennis hall-of-famer is 52.

… of Jerome Bettis. “The Bus” is 39.

Edgar Bergen was born on this date in 1903.

Born in Decatur, Michigan in 1903, Edgar Bergen developed a talent for ventriloquism at a young age. When Bergen asked a local carpenter to create a dummy, the wisecracking Charlie McCarthy was born. The duo began their career as talent show headliners, performing in Chicago while Bergen attended Northwestern University. Bergen eventually left Northwestern to concentrate on performing, but Charlie received an honorary degree from the school in 1938, a “Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comebacks.”

Bergen and McCarthy made their radio debut on Rudy Vallee’s Royal Gelatin Hour in 1936 and were an instant success. In 1937, they were given their own show for Chase & Sanborn. Almost immediately, The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show became one of radio’s highest-rated programs, a distinction it enjoyed until it left the air in 1956.

During the show’s two decades on the air, Bergen added new characters to the show, including the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry spinster Effie Klinker. Today, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd and Effie Klinker are on permanent display at the Radio Hall of Fame.

Edgar Bergen died on October 1, 1978.

Radio Hall of Fame

Henry Adams was born on this date in 1838. Adams was the son of Charles Francis Adams (Lincoln’s ambassador to Great Britain), grandson of John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of John Adams. After serving as his father’s secretary in England, Henry decided on a life as a journalist and historian, writing histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations but being best known perhaps for his autobiographical The Education of Henry Adams (1907), which won a Pulitzer Prize and remains highly regarded. Adams died in 1918.

Hugh Downs is 90. Downs was the host of The Today Show from 1962-1971; before that he was Jack Paar’s sidekick on The Tonight Show from 1957-1962. He also hosted the NBC daytime quiz show Concentration from 1958-1969. That’s right, at one point he was doing all three. And even before all that he was the announcer for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, one of television’s earliest hits beginning on NBC in 1949. And many other shows.

The Bradys’ mom and stepmom, Florence Henderson, is 77.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 69.

Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein is 67.

Magician-comedian Teller is 63. Raymond Joseph Teller was his given name, but Teller is now in fact his legal name. He is one of just a few Americans with one name on his passport (according to Wikipedia).

Michael Doucet of Beausoleil is 60.

Meg Tilly is 51.

Jack Benny was born as Benjamin Kubelsky on this date in 1894. In The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, the entry for The Jack Benny Program on radio runs for eight pages. And then he was on television. Truly one of the great stars of the mid-20th century.

Wayne Woodrow “Woody” Hayes was born on Valentine’s Day in 1913. Hayes coached The Ohio State University football team from 1951–1978. During the 1978 Gator Bowl, Hayes punched Clemson’s Charlie Bauman after Bauman intercepted an Ohio State pass. Hayes then abused an official and had to be physically restrained, attacking even his own player. He was ejected from the game and fired the next day.

In addition to Chuck Yeager mentioned just below, today is the birthday

… of Kim Novak. Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton (Vertigo) and Madge Owens (Picnic) is 78.

… of George Segal. Jack Gallo (Just Shoot Me) and Nick (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is 77.

… of Carol Lynley. Nonnie Parry (The Poseidon Adventure) and Janet Willard (Blue Denim) is 69.

… of Peter Tork of the Monkees. He’s 69.

… of Jerry Springer. He’s 67.

… of Stockard Channing. Abbey Bartlet (West Wing) and Louisa (‘Ouisa’) Kittredge (Six Degrees of Separation) is 67.

… of Mike Krzyzewski. The Duke coach is 64 today.

… of Peter Gabriel. He’s 61.

… of Randy Moss. Done it seems at 34.

William Shockley, who shared in a Nobel Prize for Physics for his role in creating the transistor, was born on this date in 1910. The transistor is the component on which the electronic age is based — we call them semi-conductors and you’re using a whole lot of them to create this page. Shockley earned even more fame for arguing for genetic differences among races — at one point calling for monetary awards if the “genetically disadvantaged” voluntarily underwent sterilization.

Pauline Frederick, the first woman to be a major correspondent for network news, was born on this date in 1908. (She died in 1990.) Frederick was the first woman to win the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.

Grant Wood was born on this date in 1891. That’s his “American Gothic.”

The first person to break the sound barrier is 88 today.

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, with two ribs broken two nights before in a drunken horseback ride. He reached a speed of 700 miles per hour, or Mach 1.06, at an altitude of 43,000 feet. The plane, Glamorous Glennis, is hanging from the Air & Space Museum ceiling. Glennis was Mrs. Yeager.

Yeager told his story in Popular Mechanics in 1987. Good reading.

Yeager is the basis for the character played by Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff. Glennis was played by Barbara Hershey.

In his wonderful book The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe explains that West Virginian Yeager is the reason why all airline pilots talk with a drawl — to be like Yeager, “the most righteous of all the posessors of the right stuff.”

But it sure as hell ought to be. Not only “Rhapsody in Blue,” Lincoln and Darwin, but it’s the birthday of Bill Russell for heaven’s sake! And Alice Roosevelt. And Omar Bradley.

[Note, I have heaven and hell in the same short paragraph. And some of you think I am not religious.]

Bill Russell is 77. Back-to-back NCAA championships at the University of San Francisco, 1955-1956 — 55 consecutive wins. Eleven NBA championships with the Celtics in 13 years, 1957-1969 — Russell was the only player there for all 11. Simply the greatest winner in basketball history. (And the best laugh.)

Today is also the birthday

… of Joe Garagiola, 85.

… of author Judy Blume. She was born Judith Sussman 73 years ago today.

… of Ray Manzarek. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 72.

The Doors formed in the summer of 1965 around Morrison and Manzarek, who’d met at UCLA’s film school. A year later the group signed with Elektra Records, recording six landmark studio LPs and a live album for the label. They achieved popular success and critical acclaim for their 1967 debut, The Doors (which included their eleven-minute epic “The End” and “Light My Fire,” a Number One hit at the height of the Summer of Love), and all the other albums that followed.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Steve Hackett of Genesis is 61 today. Michael McDonald of The Doobie Brothers turns 59.

Today is also the birthday

… of Arsenio Hall, 56.

… of Josh Brolin, 43. I wonder if his stepmom will sing “Happy Birthday” to him.

… of actress Christina Ricci. Wednesday Addams is 31.

Lorne Greene (aka Ben Cartwright) was born on this date in 1915.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter and Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth’s wife, was born on February 12th in 1884. Ms. Longworth was prominent in Washington until her death in 1980. This despite the fact — or maybe because of it — that her only child was not with her husband, but a result of her affair with Senator William Borah. Embroidered on her sofa pillow was “If you haven’t got anything good to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”

Omar Bradley, the G.I General, was born on this date in 1893.

Except for his original division assignments, Bradley won his wartime advancement on the battlefield, commanding American soldiers in North Africa, Sicily, across the Normandy beaches, and into Germany itself. His understated personal style of command left newsmen with little to write about, especially when they compared him to the more flamboyant among the Allied commanders, but his reputation as a fighter was secure among his peers and particularly with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, who considered him indispensable.

Self-effacing and quiet, Bradley showed a concern for the men he led that gave him the reputation as the “soldier’s general.” That same concern made him the ideal choice in 1945 to reinvigorate the Veterans Administration and prepare it to meet the needs of millions of demobilized servicemen. After he left active duty, both political and military leaders continued to seek Bradley’s advice. Perhaps more importantly, he remained in close touch with the Army and served its succeeding generations as the ideal model of a professional soldier.

U.S. Army Center of Military History

And it’s the birthday of artist Thomas Moran, born on this date in 1837. The National Gallery of Art has an outstanding online exhibit on Moran. Click the image for a larger replica of his classic painting “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.”

. . . the English naturalist who documented evolution and the American president who saved the Union, were born 202 years ago today.

Today is the birthday

… of Roger Mudd, 83.

… of Nobel Prize-winner for literature J.M. Coetzee. He’s 71.

… of Carole King. Tonight You’re Mine Completely, You Give Your Love So Sweetly — at 69. Songs she’s written or co-written are listed at CaroleKing.com — there are three pages of titles beginning with A alone, 6 beginning with I.

Lookin’ out on the morning rain
I used to feel uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired

Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But your love was the key to my peace of mind

‘Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like
A natural woman

One fine day
You’ll look at me
And you will know our love was meant to be
One fine day
You’re gonna want me for your girl

Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time
There’s something wrong here, there can be no denying
One of us is changing
Or maybe we just stopped trying

And it’s too late, baby, now it’s too late
Though we really did try to make it
Something inside has died
And I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view
A wondrous, woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

That’s her last year in the video below accompanying a friend (of 40 years) on some song she wrote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4o9yJ4GYo

… of Joe Pesci. Tommy DeVito is no longer a “yute,” he’s 68.

… of Barbara Lewis. Baby I’m Yours and I’ll be Yours Until the Stars Fall from the Sky — or until she’s 67.

… of Alice Walker. One assumes her birthday cake is The Color Purple as she turns 67 today.

… of Mia Farrow. The former Mrs. André Previn, Mrs. Frank Sinatra and significant other of Woody Allen is 66.

… of Senator Jim Webb, 64.

… of Travis Tritt. He’s 48. Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares).

… of Julie Warner. Vialula is 46 today.

… of the newest Oriole, Vladimir Guerrero. He’s 36.

Bill Veeck, the man who brought a dwarf (Eddie Gaedel) to bat in the major leagues, was born on this date in 1914. Veeck was owner of three different major league franchises (Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox) and created many of the publicity innovations we take for granted today. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. As told in the first chapter of Veeck’s autobiography, Veeck as in Wreck: “When Eddie went into that crouch, his strike zone was just about visible to the naked eye. I picked up a ruler and measured it for posterity. It was 1-1/2 inches. Marvelous.”

Dean Rusk, Secretary of State in the Administrations of Kennedy and Johnson, was born 102 years ago today. I met Secretary Rusk at the Johnson Library. Unlike most high-profile board members, Rusk thought meeting the staff was a considerate thing to do.

Samuel J. Tilden was born on this date in 1814. Along with Andrew Jackson in 1824 and Albert Gore in 2000, Tilden in 1876 shares the honor of winning the popular vote and having the electoral vote taken from him.

William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, and the one serving the shortest period of time — just 30 days — was born on February 9th in 1773. Harrison’s grandson, Benjamin, was the 23rd president.

. . . was born 80 years ago today.

I, James Byron Dean, was born February 8, 1931, Marion, Indiana. My parents, Winton Dean and Mildred Dean, formerly Mildred Wilson, and myself existed in the state of Indiana until I was six years of age. Dad’s work with the government caused a change, so Dad as a dental mechanic was transferred to California. There we lived, until the fourth year. Mom became ill and passed out of my life at the age of nine. I never knew the reason for Mom’s death, in fact it still preys on my mind. I had always lived such a talented life. I studied violin, played in concerts, tap-danced on theatre stages but most of all I like art, to mold and create things with my hands. I came back to Indiana to live with my uncle. I lost the dancing and violin, but not the art. I think my life will be devoted to art and dramatics. And there are so many different fields of art it would be hard to foul-up, and if I did, there are so many different things to do — farm, sports, science, geology, coaching, teaching music. I got it and I know if I better myself that there will be no match. A fellow must have confidence. When living in California my young eyes experienced many things. It was also my luck to make three visiting trips to Indiana, going and coming a different route each time. I have been in almost every state west of Indiana. I remember all. My hobby, or what I do in my spare time, is motorcycle. I know a lot about them mechanically and I love to ride. I have been in a few races and have done well. I own a small cycle myself. When I’m not doing that, I’m usually engaged in athletics, the heartbeat of every American boy. As one strives to make a goal in a game, there should be a goal in this crazy world for all of us. I hope I know where mine is, anyway, I’m after it. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Dubois, this is the hardest subject to write about considering the information one knows of himself, I ever attempted.

“My Case Study” to Roland Dubois,
Fairmount High School Principal, 1948

The Official Site of James Dean

Today is the birthday

… of Alan Alda. He’s 75.

… of Barbie Benton. Hugh Hefner’s one-time main squeeze is 61. Hef wouldn’t even date anyone as old as Benton’s kids could be.

… of Sarah McLachlan. She’s 43.

… of Bilbo Baggins. Elijah Wood is 30.

Lucien B. Maxwell sold the “Maxwell Land Grant” for $1,350,000 on this date in 1870. The grant was more than 1.7 million acres, the largest tract of privately owned land in the Western Hemisphere. (Source: New Mexico Magazine)

Jackson Pollock was born on this date in 1912. Click image for larger version.

In 1929, Pollock began studying under Thomas Hart Benton, the realist mural painter, at Manhattan’s Art Students League. Pollock said, “He drove his kind of realism at me so hard I bounced right into nonobjective painting.” Pollock became deeply influenced by Pablo Picasso’s work and the work of other surrealist painters, and this led Pollock to experiment with his painting. He developed the “drip” technique, where he would draw or drip paint onto enormous canvases. Sometimes he applied paint directly from the tube, and other times he used aluminum paint to make his work more brilliant. He was so energetic in his attacks on the canvas that his approach to painting became known as “action painting.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2008)

The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded moments after takeoff on this date in 1986. Read about it from The New York Times.

Chief Justice John Roberts is 56 today.

The actor James Cromwell is 71.

Mikhail Baryshnikov is 63.

Keith Olbermann is 52.

Sultry-voiced Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies is 50. At 29 People thought she was one of the 50 most beautiful. (Click the image for larger version.)

Peter Fonda’s daughter Bridget is 47.

Jerome Kern was born on this date in 1885.

. . . Then he met Oscar Hammerstein II, who became a lifelong friend, and the two collaborated on Show Boat in 1927. This musical gave us the songs “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” In 1933, Kern and Hammerstein produced Roberta, which included the famous song “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”

Kern moved to Hollywood in 1935, and he enjoyed success there. He wrote “The Way You Look Tonight” for the movie Swing Time, and the song won an Academy Award. In 1941, Kern and Hammerstein wrote “The Last Time I Saw Paris” because Paris had just been occupied by Nazi Germany, and that song also won an Academy Award.

The Writer’s Almanac (2008)

Billings Learned Hand was born on this date in 1872.

Learned Hand served as a federal judge longer than any other man—52 years. His opinions were prodigious, totaled more than 2,000. covering every phase of the law from maritime liens to complicated antitrust cases. His tart observations (“Judges can be damned fools like anybody else”) were treasured. On the bench. Judge Hand was a formidable figure, a stocky man with the broad shoulders of his Kentish forebears, glittering eyes under dense brows, and craggy features that might have been carved by Gutzon Berglum. Intolerant of lawyers who strayed from the point or became too verbose. Judge Hand sent wayward attorneys scampering back to the facts with an acid query—”May I inquire, sir, what are you trying to tell us?”—or just a furious “Rubbish!”‘ Once, confronting the ferocious old judge at a Yale Law School moot court, a terrified student fainted dead away.

“A Mere Vaudevillian.” In writing his decisions. Hand followed the meticulous painstaking procedure that he demanded in his court. He invariably wrote three or four drafts of every opinion in longhand on yellow foolscap before the language and reasoning finally satisfied him. His opinions cut to the marrow of the issue and proceeded eloquently but rapidly to the point. Hand’s famed 28-page opinion on United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, in which he ruled that “good” monopolies had no more legality than “bad” monopolies, was distilled from 40,000 pages and four years of testimony, has been a model for every subsequent antitrust suit.

Above from Time obituary, 1961.

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”

Judge Learned Hand to 150,000 new citizens of the United States, Central Park, 1944.

Etta James is 73 today. She gets her own post just before this one.

Alicia Keys is 30.

I was thinkin’ ’bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying
When she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee

— Bob Dylan, “Thunder on the Mountain”

Songs in A Minor

Dean Jones is 80. Herbie’s co-star in The Love Bug.

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25th in 1882. She married Leonard Woolf in 1912.

I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.

Woolf’s note to her husband just before she drowned herself in 1941.

Charles Curtis was born in Kansas on this date in 1860. Curtis was the 31st vice president of the United States, serving under President Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933. Curtis is the first person with non-European ancestry to ever serve as President or Vice President. His mother was part Kansa or Kaw, Osage and Potawatomi and part French. Curtis had a one-eighth Indian blood quantum.

George Edward Pickett was born on this date in 1825. He was 59th out of 59 in the Class of 1846 class at West Point, but was a hero at the Battle of Chapultepec in September 1847. On July 3, 1863, Maj. Gen. Pickett was one of three Confederate generals under Gen. James Longstreet who led their men against the Union forces on Cemetery Ridge outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Pickett’s division suffered over 50% casualties. All three of Pickett’s brigade commanders and all 13 of his regimental commanders were casualties. Pickett himself lived until 1875.

Robert Burns was born on this date 252 years ago.

[B]orn in Alloway, Scotland (1759). He farmed, worked as a tax collector, and wrote poems. And he spent more than a decade gathering traditional Scottish folk songs, humming the airs and making sheet music out of the tunes, and writing lyrics to a lot of the tunes, as well.

He went about songwriting in a very ritualistic manner, making sure that his mood was right and his muse was present. Before he started making up words to go with a folk tune, he said he tried hard to discern the “poetic sentiment” that would correspond to the “idea of the musical expression” of the tune. …

Excerpt from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.

Son-in-law Rob has a “milestone” birthday today. His parents flew coast-to-coast last week to surprise him — they were waiting when Rob and family went out for breakfast on Friday. As Emily reported, “His face as we walked up to them in the restaurant was priceless.” Happy Birthday to you, Rob.

Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine is 94 today. Borgnine won the best actor Oscar in 1956 for the lead in Marty. The film also won best picture, director and screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). Borgnine is however, perhaps best known as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale of the sitcom McHale’s Navy.

Ray Stevens is 72. (He was born Harold Ray Ragsdale.)

One of the most popular novelty artists of all time, Ray Stevens enjoyed a remarkably long career, with a stretch of charting singles — some of them major hits — that spanned four decades. Unlike parody king Weird Al Yankovic, Stevens made most of his impact with original material, often based on cultural trends of the day. Yet his knack for sheer silliness translated across generations, not to mention countless compilations and special TV offers. Stevens was a legitimately skilled singer and producer who also performed straight country and pop, scoring the occasional serious hit. But in general, comic novelty songs were his bread and butter, and his brand of humor somehow managed to endure seismic shifts in popular taste and style.

allmusic

“Ahab the Arab,” “Everything Is Beautiful” and “The Streak” are Stevens’s major contributions to American culture.

Neil Diamond is 70, as is Aaron Neville. Diamond is an inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Mary Lou Retton is 43. Ed Helms is 37. Mischa Barton is 25.

Edith Wharton was born on January 24th in 1862.

[T]he writer who said, “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.” That’s Edith Wharton, born in New York City (1862). She wrote about frustrated love in novels like The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Above from a long profile at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

John Belushi should have been 62 today.

Three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie is 79. She was nominated twice for supporting actress and once for leading, The Hustler.

Two-time best actor Oscar nominee John Hurt is 71. He was nominated for his performances in Midnight Express and Elephant Man.

One-time Oscar nominee Linda Blair is 52. She was nominated as best actress in a supporting role, but she didn’t win because the Devil made her do it.

One-time best actress nominee Diane Lane is 46. I liked her best as Laurie Darlin’ in Lonesome Dove. She was 14 when she was on the cover of Time.

LBJ died on this date 38 years ago.

 

… of Betty White. The character actress, who first appeared on television in 1949, and most famous now for The Golden Girls, is 89. Miss White has been nominated for 19 Emmy Awards, winning five times. I saw a promo during yesterday’s Jets-Patriot game that featured both Betty White and Steven Tyler (62). Ms. White looks by far the best of the two.

… of James Earl Jones. The voice of Darth Vader is 80. Jones has been in more than 130 films and appeared on more than 50 television programs. He was nominated for the 1971 best actor Oscar for The Great White Hope.

… of Muhammad Ali. The Champ is 69.

… of Bangle Susanna Hoffs, now 52.

… of Jim Carrey. The comedian is 49.

… of Kid Rock. Not so much the Kid anymore at 40.

And it’s the birthday of Al Capone, born in Naples, Italy, in 1899. Here’s some of the background from his obituary in The New York Times when he died in 1947 at the age of 48.

Alphonse (Scarface) Capone, the fat boy from Brooklyn, was a Horatio Alger hero–underworld version. More than any other one man he represented, at the height of his power from 1925 through 1931, the debauchery of the “dry” era. He seized and held in thrall during that period the great city of Chicago and its suburbs.

Head of the cruelest cutthroats in American history, he inspired gang wars in which more than 300 men died by the knife, the shotgun, the tommy gun and the pineapple, the gangster adaptation of the World War I hand grenade.

His infamy made international legend. In France, for example, he was “The One Who Is Scarred.” He was the symbol of the ultimate in American lawlessness.

Capone won great wealth; how much, no one will ever know, except that the figure was fantastic. He remained immune from prosecution for his multitudinous murders (including the St. Valentine Day Massacre in 1929 when his gunners, dressed as policemen, trapped and killed eight of the Bugs Moran bootleg outfit in a Chicago garage), but was brought to book, finally, on the comparatively sissy charge of evasion of income taxes amounting to around $215,000.

For this, he was sentenced to eleven years in Federal prison–serving first at Atlanta, then on The Rock, at Alcatraz–and was fined $50,000, with $20,000 additional for costs. With time out for good conduct, he finished this sentence in mid-January of 1939; but by then he was a slack- jawed paretic overcome by social disease, and paralytic to boot.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is 47 today.

Today is the birthday

… of Ray Price. Still for the good times at 85.

When Ray Noble Price was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, many noted that the honor was long overdue. Such feelings weren’t based so much on the longevity of his career or on the number of major hits he has recorded, for in those regards Price was no different from many other deserving artists awaiting induction. More importantly, Price has been one of country’s great innovators. He changed the sound of country music from the late 1950s forward by developing a rhythmic brand of honky-tonk that has been hugely influential ever since. As steel guitarist Don Helms, a veteran of Hank Williams’s Drifting Cowboys once put it, “Ray Price created an era.”

Country Music Hall of Fame

… of Glenn Yarbrough. He’s 81.

… of William Lee Golden. The big, bearded member, but not the bass voice, of the Oak Ridge Boys is 72.

… of Smokin’ Joe Frazier. The champ is 67.

… of Cynthia Robinson. She’s dancing to the music at 67 (Sly and the Family Stone).

You might like to hear the horns blowin’,
Cynthia on the throne, yeah!
Cynthia & Jerry got a message they’re sayin’:
[Cynthia:] All the squares, go home!

… of Kirstie Alley. She’s 60.

… of the most dangerous man in America, Rush Limbaugh. The audio-terrorist is 60.

… of Howard Stern. He’s 57.

… of broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour. She’s 53.

… of actor Oliver Platt, 51.

… of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The billionaire is 47.

… of Naya Rivera of Glee. The high school cheerleader is 24.

Jack London was born in San Francisco on this date in 1876. London wrote more than 50 books, including The Call of the Wild and White Fang (1906). His most unforgettable story may be To Build a Fire. London died at age 40. The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor has a long profile from its archives.

John Hancock was born on this date in 1737. Hancock was President of the Continental Congress of the United States of America in the summer of 1776. He was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence.

. . . was born on this date in 1855.

At the age of 17, Gillette became a traveling salesman, who made improvement to his wares as well as selling them. By 1890, he had earned four patents. More importantly, he had learned from the President of his company that disposable items made for big sales.

On the road, Gillette used to shave every morning with a Star Safety Razor: that is, a heavy, wedge-shaped blade fitted perpendicularly into its handle. It would have been downright dangerous, in the lavatory of a rumbling train, for Gillette to shave with the type of straight razor used by most men at the time. However, the safety razor did share a major shortcoming with standard razors: the blade had to be sharpened frequently on a leather strop; and even so, the blade eventually became too worn to sharpen.

One morning in 1895, Gillette, now living in Boston, had a revelation: if he could put a sharp edge on a small square of sheet steel, he could market a safety razor blade that could be thrown away when it grew dull, and readily replaced. Gillette visited metallurgists at MIT, who assured him his idea was impossible. It took Gillette six years to find an engineer, William Emery Nickerson (an MIT-trained inventor), who could produce the blade Gillette wanted.

In 1901, Gillette and Nickerson formed the American Safety Razor Company (soon thereafter renamed for Gillette himself). For the first time, razor blades would be sold in multiple packages, with the razor handle a one-time purchase. Production began in 1903; Gillette won a patent for his product the next year.

Competition was fierce from the start, for two reasons. First, virtually half the world’s population was a potential customer; second, once the basic idea was made public, modifications multiplied at an incredible rate. For example, Gillette introduced his double-edged blade, of the still familiar type, in 1904; soon, so did many other companies. In a series of patent battles, Gillette Co. often resolved the controversy by buying the competitor. Over the years, he became a kind of international celebrity, since his portrait was featured on the wrappers of the tens of billions of Gillette blades sold all over the world.

Excerpted from Inventor of the Week: Archive — MIT

Robert Duvall was born in San Diego 80 years ago today. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore (photo above), Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.

Walter F. Mondale is 83.

Umberto Eco is 79 today. Two excerpts from a profile today at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

He went to graduate school, wrote a dissertation on the aesthetics of medieval church philosopher Thomas Aquinas, and started working in television, which he really loved. He wondered if he had some sort of split personality, since he was so passionately interested in television and medieval aesthetics, fields that seemed like polar opposites. But he realized that what it came down to was that he was interested in how cultures communicate with signs and symbols, otherwise known as semiotics.

He wrote a murder mystery about poisoned monks, set in the year 1327. He describes it as “an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory.” The Name of the Rose, published in Italian in 1980 and in English in 1983, became an international best-seller. His other novels include Foucault’s Pendulum (1988), Mysterious Flame of the Queen Loana (2004), and most recently, The Cemetery of Prague (2010).

Charlie Rose is 69 today.

Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles 65 years ago today. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977. She has had three other Oscar nominations. She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.

Marilyn Manson is 42.

January Jones is 33 today.

Don Shula is 81.

Dyan Cannon is 74.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is 68. The Writer’s Almanac has a good profile of Mrs. Goodwin today.

Patty Loveless is 54. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. is 51.

Julia Ormond is 46. Ormond played then 39-year-old Cate Blanchett’s daughter in a small part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Issac Newton was born on this date in 1643. The NOVA website devoted to Einstein talks also of the genius of Newton.

There is a parlor game physics students play: Who was the greater genius? Galileo or Kepler? (Galileo) Maxwell or Bohr? (Maxwell, but it’s closer than you might think). Hawking or Heisenberg? (A no-brainer, whatever the best-seller lists might say. It’s Heisenberg). But there are two figures who are simply off the charts. Isaac Newton is one. The other is Albert Einstein. If pressed, physicists give Newton pride of place, but it is a photo finish — and no one else is in the race.

Newton’s claim is obvious. He created modern physics. His system described the behavior of the entire cosmos — and while others before him had invented grand schemes, Newton’s was different. His theories were mathematical, making specific predictions to be confirmed by experiments in the real world. Little wonder that those after Newton called him lucky — “for there is only one universe to discover, and he discovered it. “

The physician, political leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush was born on this date in 1746 — or on December 24, 1745, depending. When he was six, Britain and its colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, skipping forward 11 days.