Category: Birthdays

Today is the birthday

… of Larry King. He’s 77. Before CNN, King was one of the first stars of national talk radio. He left his keys on the table of a fast food restaurant in Crystal City, Virginia, near where I was staying during a business trip in 1983. I noticed the keys and called after him. Only when he thanked me did I hear his voice and know who he was.

… of Dick Cavett. He’s 74. Louis Menand has an article about Dick Cavett and the battles for late night in the current New Yorker.

… of Ted Turner. He’s 72. Turner is America’s largest individual private landowner. Turner owns about 1.8 million acres in 10 states, more than one million of it in New Mexico (though he is not New Mexico’s largest private individual landowner).

… of Calvin Klein. He’s 68.

… of Ahmad Rashad. He was born Bobby Moore 61 years ago. Rashad proposed to Cosby TV mom Phylicia Ayers-Allen on national TV during halftime of a Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day game. O.J. Simpson was his best man. Rashad and Allen were divorced in 2001.

… of Ann Curry of The Today Show. She’s 54. Daughter of an American father and Japanese mother, Curry was born on Guam and raised in Oregon.

… of Allison Janney. She’s 51. Six Emmy nominations for “West Wing,” four wins.

… of Meg Ryan. She’s 49. Ryan has been nominated for best acting Golden Globes, but no Oscars.

… of Jodie Foster. She’s 48. Nominated for the best actress Oscar three times and best supporting actress once, Foster won for “The Accused” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was born on November 19, 1921.

A star with both the bat and glove, Roy Campanella was agile behind the plate, had a rifle arm and was an expert at handling pitchers. He was named National League MVP three times, including a 1953 selection when he set single-season records for catchers with 41 homers and a National League best 142 RBI. Before signing with the Dodgers, the broad-shouldered receiver starred with the Negro National Leagues’ Baltimore Elite Giants for seven seasons. His career was cut short by a tragic auto accident prior to the 1958 season.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Bandleader and trombonist Tommy Dorsey was born on November 19, 1905.

Though he might have been ranked second at any given moment to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or Harry James, Tommy Dorsey was overall the most popular bandleader of the swing era that lasted from 1935 to 1945. His remarkably melodic trombone playing was the signature sound of his orchestra, but he successfully straddled the hot and sweet styles of swing with a mix of ballads and novelty songs. He provided showcases to vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Jo Stafford, and he employed inventive arrangers such as Sy Oliver and Bill Finegan. [Dorsey] was the biggest-selling artist in the history of RCA Victor Records, one of the major labels, until the arrival of Elvis Presley, who was first given national exposure on the 1950s television show [Tommy Dorsey] hosted with his brother Jimmy.

VH1.com

Evangelist Billy Sunday was born on November 19, 1862. Sunday played professional baseball for the Chicago White Stockings, Pittsburgh Alleghenies and Philadelphia Phillies 1883-1890. Following a conversion in 1886, Sunday became the most influential preacher of the era.

In the early 1900s, Billy Sunday sold what was then a unique brand of muscular, testosterone-laden Christianity.

Today, ministers in some of the country’s largest churches preach in shirtsleeves and talk about God in terms of football or golf. Billy Sunday was one of the first to do this. He was a professional baseball player turned tent preacher who became the richest and most influential preacher of his time.
. . .

Sunday, says Martin, was “one of the most acrobatic evangelists of the age.” One newspaper columnist at the time estimated that Sunday traveled about a mile during each sermon.

NPR : Billy Sunday, Man of God

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fist less and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!”

James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was born on this date in 1831. He was assassinated two months before his 50th birthday.

After graduating from Williams College in 1856, he returned home to Ohio as a teacher of classics at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio. As a parlor trick, he could hold a pen in each hand and simultaneously write in Latin and Greek. He went on to gain distinction as a Union officer in the Battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga, got himself elected first to the House and then the Senate, and emerged as the compromise choice to head the Republican ticket for president in 1880.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

W. C. Handy was born on this date in 1873, the son of former slaves.

I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
‘Cause my baby has left this town.

If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, just like I feel today,
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, like I feel today,
I’ll pack my trunk and make my get-away.

St. Louis woman, with all her diamond rings,
Stole that man of mine, by her apron strings;
If it wasn’t for powder, and her store-bought hair,
That man I love wouldn’t’ve gone nowhere!
Nowhere!

W.C. Handy is widely recognized by his self-proclaimed moniker, “Father of the Blues” due to his steadfast and pioneering efforts to document, write and publish blues music and his life-long support of the genre. Although much of his musical taste leaned toward a more sophisticated and polished sound, Handy was among the first to recognize the value of the blues, and Southern black music in general, as an important American legacy. Handy was an accomplished bandleader and songwriter who performed throughout the South before continuing his career in New York. He came across the Delta blues in the late 1890s, and his composition “Memphis Blues,” published in 1912, was the first to include “blues” in the title. Some historians don’t consider “Memphis Blues” to be an actual blues song, however it did influence the creation of other blues tunes, including the historic “Crazy Blues,” which is commonly known as the first blues song to ever be recorded (by Mamie Smith in 1920). A Memphis park was named after Handy in recognition of his contribution to blues and the Blues Foundation recognizes the genre’s achievements annually with the prestigious W.C. Handy award.

The Blues | PBS

NPR told the Handy and St. Louis Blues stories as part of the NPR 100. Click to hear the NPR report, which includes Handy’s own reminiscences and the complete 1925 recording of the song by Bessie Smith accompanied by Louis Armstrong, possibly the most influential recording in American music history. (RealPlayer file. Note: The free media player VLC will play this file.)

Or you could spend 99¢ and buy the track from iTunes. This recording makes my desert island list every time.

It’s also the birthday of Maggie Gyllenhaal (33), Lisa Bonet (43), and Diana Krall (46).

Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago was born on this date in 1922. He died in June.

Burgess Meredith was born 103 years ago today. Meredith was twice nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar — at the age of 68 and 69 — The Day of the Locust and Rocky.

Oklahoma became a state, the 46th, on November 16, 1907.

Georgia O’Keefe was born on November 15th in 1887.

[O’Keefe] was an unknown 29-year-old art teacher when a series of her charcoal drawings wound up in the hands of the photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz, and he put the drawings in his art gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York City without even asking her. At first, she was angry that her work had been exhibited without her permission, but the drawings made her famous, the first American woman to be taken seriously by the art world.

She eventually met Stieglitz; they hit it off and got married. O’Keeffe eventually became even more famous for her paintings of flowers, but when asked why she chose flowers as her subject, she said, “Because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is in Santa Fe. American Masters has a brief biography.

Judge Wapner is 91 today. Raymond Babbitt sends his greetings.

Ed Asner, who will always be Lou Grant to me, is 81. We saw Asner in a one-man performance as FDR earlier this year.

Petula Clark will be headed downtown to celebrate her 78th birthday.

When you’re alone
And life is making you lonely
You can always go
Downtown

Sam Waterston is 70.

Our guv for a few more weeks, Bill Richardson, is 63 today.

Justice Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), Field Marshal Edwin Rommel (1891-1944), Governor (of New York) Averell Harriman (1891-1986), and U.S. Air Force General (and George Wallace running-mate) Curtis LeMay (1906-1990) were all born on this date.

On the 13th of November

… in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Franklin died the following year.

… in 1940, the Disney film Fantasia premiered.

… in 1977, the comic strip “Li’l Abner” ended. The strip, by Al Capp, had begun in 1934. It was immensely popular, part of pop culture in the way The Simpsons, for example, are today. There were comic books, a radio show, music, stage productions and more. And, of course, Sadie Hawkins Day, when the girls could ask out the boys.

… in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington was dedicated.

Joe Mantegna is 63 today, Chris Noth is 56, Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg is 55 (birth name Caryn Elaine Johnson), Vinny Testaverde is 47, and Jimmy Kimmel is 43.

One of America’s oldest recent high school graduates, Taylor McKessie is 30 today. That’s actress Monique Coleman of High School Musical.

Louis Brandeis was born on November 13, 1856. He served on the Supreme Court from 1916-1939.

For Brandeis, law was a device to shape social, economic, and political affairs. Law had to operate on the basis of two key assumptions: that the individual was the basic force in society and that the individual had limited capabilities. Brandeis did not seek to coddle the individual; rather, he sought to stretch individual potential to its limit.

Oyez

And, as celebrated by Google, today is the 160th anniversary of the birth of Robert Louis Stevenson.

One rainy summer afternoon, Stevenson painted a map of an imaginary island to entertain his new stepson, and in a single month, he wrote his first great novel, Treasure Island (1883). It’s been in print for 127 years.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 160th birthday.

Today is the birthday

… of Wallace Shawn. The actor-playwright is 67. Inconceivable!

He’s the son of the former New Yorker editor William Shawn, and he’s become well known as a character actor in Hollywood movies such as The Princess Bride (1987) and Clueless (1995) [and Toy Story]. Most people don’t know that he’s also an avant-garde playwright. When he got out of college, a lot of his friends took jobs writing for his father’s magazine, but Shawn supported his playwriting by working as a photocopy clerk. He then got the idea of selling stock in himself, and managed to raise $2,500 from investors, which helped him write his first plays. To this day, he sends all those early investors a small annual check. His early plays were not successes. During his first play, the audience actually shouted for the actors to shut up. But he finally had a breakthrough when he wrote and starred in the movie My Dinner with Andre (1981), which consists entirely of Shawn and the theater director Andre Gregory talking over dinner, but it became a cult classic.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

… of Brian Hyland. The Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini singer is 65.

… of Al Michaels. Do you believe in miracles? He’s 67.

… of Booker T. Jones. The organist is 66. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Between 1963 and 1968, Booker T. and the MGs appeared on more than 600 Stax/Volt recordings, including classics by such artists as Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and William Bell. As a result of Stax’s affiliation with Atlantic Records, the group also worked with Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Albert King. Moreover, Booker T. and the MGs were a successful recording group in their own right, cutting ten albums and fourteen instrumental hits, including “Green Onions,” “Hang ‘Em High,” “Time Is Tight” and “Soul-Limbo.”

… of Neil Young. He’s 65. Again, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Neil Young is one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers. In a career that extends back to his mid-Sixties roots as a coffeehouse folkie in his native Canada, this principled and unpredictable maverick has pursued an often winding course across the rock and roll landscape. He’s been a cult hero, a chart-topping rock star, and all things in-between, remaining true to his restless muse all the while. At various times, Young has delved into folk, country, garage-rock and grunge. His biggest album, Harvest (1972) , apotheosized the laid-back singer/songwriter genre he helped invent. By contrast, Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Young’s second-best seller, was a loud, brawling masterpiece whose title track, an homage to Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, contained the oft-quoted line “Better to burn out than it is to rust.”

… of journalist and author Tracy Kidder, also 65.

His second book was about 1970s engineers racing to design new computers, a compelling book that one reviewer said “involves binary arithmetic, Boolean algebra, and a grasp of the difference between a System Cache and an Instruction Processor.” That book, The Soul of New Machine (1981), won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.

He wrote a book about constructing a house. And he wrote one about a fifth-grade teacher and her class; for his research he sat in the classroom for 178 of the 180 days of the school year — one day he was sick, and one day he played hooky — and took 10,000 pages of notes. He wrote about relationships at a nursing home in Northampton, Massachusetts, in Old Friends (1993), and about Dr. Paul Farmer, “a Man Who Would Cure the World” in Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

… of Megan Mullally. She’s 52.

… of Nadia Elena Comăneci. The perfect 10 is 49.

… of Samuel Peralta “Sammy” Sosa, 42.

… of Anne Hathaway, all of 28.

Oscar winner Grace Kelly was born 81 years ago today. Her oscar was for best performance by an actress in The Country Girl (1954).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on this date in 1815.

Oh, wait, it is a holiday.

Three-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is 36 today.

Calista Flockhart, Mrs. Harrison Ford, is 46. (He’s 68.)

Demi Moore is 48.

Stanley Tucci is 50.

Jonathan Winters is 85.

The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922.

George Patton was born on November 11, 1885. From his New York Times obituary in 1945:

Gen. George Smith Patton Jr. was one of the most brilliant soldiers in American history. Audacious, unorthodox and inspiring, he led his troops to great victories in North Africa, Sicily and on the Western Front. Nazi generals admitted that of all American field commanders he was the one they most feared. To Americans he was a worthy successor of such hardbitten cavalrymen as Philip Sheridan, J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

His great soldierly qualities were matched by one of the most colorful personalities of his period. About him countless legends clustered–some true, some untrue, but all testifying to the firm hold he had upon the imaginations of his men. He went into action with two pearl-handled revolvers in holsters on his hips. He was the master of an unprintable brand of eloquence, yet at times he coined phrases that will live in the American Army’s traditions.

“We shall attack and attack until we are exhausted, and then we shall attack again,” he told his troops before the initial landings in North Africa, thereby summarizing the military creed that won victory after victory along the long road that led from Casablanca to the heart of Germany.

Today is the 235th anniversary of the founding of the United States Marine Corps.

Russell Johnson is 86. You know, The Professor on Gilligan’s Island. Johnson has another 150 or so cast credits at IMDb.

The Mama and Papa’s little girl is 51; that’s Mackenzie Phillips. Known, of course, as the older Cooper sister in “One Day At a Time,” the young Phillips, I thought, was best as Carol in “American Graffiti.”

Tracy Morgan is 42.

It’s the birthday of Ellen Pompeo. Dr. Grey’s anatomy is 41 today.

Roy Scheider was born on this date in 1932. He was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for “The French Connection,” and the best actor Oscar for “All That Jazz,” but we may know him best as Sheriff Martin Brody in Jaws. Scheider died in 2008.

Richard Burton was born 85 years ago today (1925). Burton was nominated for the best actor Oscar six times and best supporting actor Oscar once. He never won. Burton died at age 58.

Martin Luther was born on this date in 1483.

Sesame Street debuted 41 years ago today.

Today is the birthday of Billy Graham. He’s 92. You’d think he’d want to go to heaven by now.

Johnny Rivers is 68.

Roberta Joan Anderson is 67. We know her as Joni Mitchell.

A consummate artist, Joni Mitchell is an accomplished musician, songwriter, poet and painter. Hailing from Canada, where she performed as a folksinger as far back as 1962, she found her niche on the same Southern California singer/songwriter scene of the late Sixties and early Seventies that germinated such kindred spirits as Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Mitchell’s artistry goes well beyond folksinging to incorporate elements of jazz and classical music. In her own words, “I looked like a folksinger, even though the moment I began to write, my music was not folk music. It was something else that had elements of romantic classicism to it.” Impossible to categorize, Mitchell has doggedly pursued avenues of self-expression, heedless of commercial outcomes. Nonetheless, she managed to connect with a mass audience in the mid-Seventies when a series of albums—Court and Spark (1974, #2), Miles of Aisles (1974, #2), The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975, #4) and Hejira (1976, #13)-established her as one of that decade’s pre-eminent artists.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

General David Petraeus is 58.

Christopher Knight is 53. We know him better as Peter Brady.

Herman Mankiewicz was born 113 years ago today.

[Mankiewicz] worked as a screenwriter on many successful Hollywood films, but he was uncredited on a lot of them, like Horse Feathers (1932), Million Dollar Legs (1932), and The Wizard of Oz (1939) — he was the one who suggested that they film the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz in black and white. But he did get credit for his work with Orson Welles co-writing the script for Citizen Kane (1941). Citizen Kane topped a lot of lists as the best film of the 20th century, but when it came out it only won one Academy Award, and that was for its screenplay.

When he was in New York, he said, “Oh, to be back in Hollywood, wishing I was back in New York.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Today is the birthday

… of James Knox Polk, 11th president of the United States, born on this date in 1795.

… and of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th president of the United States, born on this date in 1865.

Polk is generally rated among the “near great” presidents for achieving what he set out to do (wrong as some of it might have been). Harding who died while president, is generally considered a “failure,” though he has moved up the ratings at least one slot during the past decade.

Daniel Boone was born on November 2nd in 1734 near Reading, Pennsylvania. (It was October 22nd the day he was born, but the calendar of the British Empire officially dropped 11 days in 1752.)

Daniel Boone fought in the French and Indian War, came home and got married, and managed to have 10 children in between his long and frequent hunting trips into the wilderness. He explored farther and farther west, and in 1767 he ventured into Kentucky for the first time. A couple of years later, he made it to the Cumberland Gap, and then he said, “I returned to my family with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise.” He did manage to move his whole family to Kentucky, then West Virginia, and finally, Missouri. When someone asked him why he had left Kentucky, he said it was “too crowded.” In 1788, when he moved to West Virginia, there were about 70,000 people in the entire territory.

Above from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, which has more, as well as info about Lady Chatterly’s Lover and the birthday of cheerleading.

Pat Buchanan, a specter some people see everywhere, is 72 today.

Stefanie Zofya Paul was born in Hollywood, California, 68 years ago today. As Stefanie Powers she is best known for her role in Hart to Hart.

k.d. lang is 49. David Schwimmer — “Ross” — is 44.

Burt Lancaster was born on November 2, 1913. Lancaster had four best actor Oscar nominations, winning for Elmer Gantry. Among his last performances was as Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham in Field of Dreams. Lancaster died in 1994.

North and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states respectively on November 2, 1889.

Today is the birthday of Charlie Daniels. The devil in Georgia is 74.

Actress Jane Alexander is 71 today. Ms. Alexander has four Oscar nominations in her career; two for best actress and two for best supporting actress.

Det. Andy Sipowicz is 66. That’s Dennis Franz.

Bill Gates, the former resident of Albuquerque, is 55 today.

When he was in 8th grade, the [Seattle] Lakeside Mothers Club had a rummage sale and used the money to buy computer equipment for the school. Gates and his friend Paul Allen got completely swept up in the excitement of this new technology. They rummaged through dumpsters at the nearby Computer Center Corporation to find notes written by programmers, and with that information, they wrote a 300-page manual. He and Paul Allen moved to Albuquerque and started Microsoft in 1975.

The Writer’s Almanac (2008)

Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) is 43. Ms. Roberts was also nominated for best actress for Pretty Woman and best supporting actress for Steel Magnolias.

Two-time Grammy winner Ben Harper is 41.

Joaquin Phoenix, who has already been nominated for a best supporting actor (“Gladiator”) and a leading actor (“Walk the Line”) Oscar, is 36.

Costume designer Edith Head was born on October 24th in 1897. Ms. Head was nominated for 35 Oscars, winning eight.

The developer of the first polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk was born on this date in 1914.

He created the vaccine at the height of a polio epidemic in the mid-1950s, when parents were so worried about their children that they kept them home from swimming pools in the summer. Salk’s discovery was that a vaccine could be developed from a dead virus, and he tested the vaccine on himself, his family, and the staff of his laboratory to prove it was safe. The vaccine was finally released to the public in 1955, and the number of people infected by polio went down from more than 10,000 a year to fewer than 100. Salk was declared a national hero.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Harvard College was founded on this date in 1636.

Today is Pat Sajak’s birthday. His wheel of fortune has spun for 64 years.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is 63 today.

Jaclyn Smith of Charlie’s Angels is 63.

Natalie Merchant is 47.

And it’s the birthday of Mahalia Jackson, born on this date in 1911 (she died in 1972). As The New York Times noted in Ms. Jackson’s obituary:

“I been ‘buked and I been scorned/ I’m gonna tell my Lord/ When I get home/ Just how long you’ve been treating me wrong,” she sang in a full, rich contralto to the throng of 200,000 people as a preface to Dr. King’s “I’ve got a dream” speech.

The song, which Dr. King had requested, came as much from Miss Jackson’s heart as from her vocal cords. The granddaughter of a slave, she had struggled for years for fulfillment and for unprejudiced recognition of her talent.

She received the latter only belatedly with a Carnegie Hall debut in 1950. Her following, therefore, was largely in the black community, in the churches and among record collectors.

Although Miss Jackson’s medium was the sacred song drawn from the Bible or inspired by it, the words–and the “soul” style in which they were delivered–became metaphors of black protest, Tony Heilbut, author of “The Gospel Sound” and her biographer, said yesterday. Among blacks, he went on, her favorites were “Move On Up a Little Higher,” “Just Over the Hill” and “How I Got Over.”

Singing these and other songs to black audiences, Miss Jackson was a woman on fire, whose combs flew out of her hair as she performed. She moved her listeners to dancing, to shouting, to ecstasy, Mr. Heilbut said. By contrast, he asserted, Miss Jackson’s television style and her conduct before white audiences was far more placid and staid.

Had Mahalia Jackson been born a few decades later, when she could have sung her soul for audiences black and white, she, Mahalia Jackson, and not Aretha Franklin, would have been the Queen of Soul and the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Today is the birthday

… of basketball coach Bobby Knight. He’s 70.

… of singer Helen Reddy. “I am woman, hear me roar” is a roaring 69.

… of author Anne Tyler (not to be confused with Ann Taylor). The Pulitzer winner (for Breathing Lessons) is 69.

Early in her career, she decided she did not want to be a public person, so she stopped giving readings and only does occasional interviews in writing. She said, “Any time I talk in public about writing, I end up not able to do any writing. It’s as if some capricious Writing Elf goes into a little sulk whenever I expose him.” Ann Tyler also said, “I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances. It’s lucky I do it on paper. Probably I would be schizophrenic — and six times divorced — if I weren’t writing.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

… of basketball hall-of-famer Dave Cowens. The tenacious Celtic is 62.

… of Nancy Cartwright. The voice of Bart Simpson is 53.

… of Katy Perry, 26.

Pablo Picasso was born on this date in 1881. That’s his Accordionist (L’Accordéoniste), 1911, on the right.

Charles Edward Coughlin was born on this date in 1891.

One of the first public figures to make effective use of the airwaves, Charles E. Coughlin, was for a time one of the most influential personalities on American radio. At the height of his popularity in the early 1930s, some 30 million listeners tuned in to hear his emotional messages. Many of his speeches were rambling, disorganized, repetitious, and as time went by, they became increasingly full of bigoted rhetoric. But as a champion of the poor, a foe of big business, and a critic of federal indifference in the face of widespread economic distress, he spoke to the hopes and fears of lower-middle class Americans throughout the country. Years later, a supporter remembered the excitement of attending one of his rallies: “When he spoke it was a thrill like Hitler. And the magnetism was uncanny. It was so intoxicating, there’s no use saying what he talked about…”

The American Experience

NewMexiKen once attended a sermon by Fr. Coughlin. I remember it only that I knew who he’d been thirty years earlier and that it had political undertones. The link above has more details about Coughlin’s career. The Talking History Archive has a Coughlin broadcast. Scroll down the page about 40%.

Today is the birthday

… of football hall-of-fame quarterback Yelberton Abraham “Y.A.” Tittle, 84.

Career record: 2,427 completions, 33,070 yards, 242 TDs, 13 games over 300 yards passing…Paced 1961, 1962, 1963 Giants to division titles…Threw 33 TD passes in 1962, 36 in 1963…NFL’s Most Valuable Player, 1961, 1963.

… of Bill Wyman. The Rolling Stones’ bass player (1962-1992) is 74.

… of F. Murray Abraham. The Oscar-winning best actor (Amadeus) is 71 today.

… of Kevin Kline. The Oscar-winning best supporting actor (A Fish Called Wanda) is 63 today.

Bob Kane, the cartoonist who created “Batman” was born on October 24, 1915. From his Times obituary in 1998:

In 1938 he started drawing adventure strips, ”Rusty and His Pals” and ”Clip Carson,” for National Comics. That same year, a comic-book hero called Superman appeared. Vincent Sullivan, the editor of National Comics, who also owned Superman, asked Mr. Kane and Mr. Finger to come up with a Supercompetitor. They developed Batman on a single weekend. Mr. Kane was 18 [23].

The first Batman strip came out in May 1939 in Detective Comics, one year after the debut of Superman. Batman’s first adventure was called ”The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” And he was another kind of superhero entirely. Batman wasn’t as strong as Superman, but he was much more agile, a better dresser and had better contraptions and a cooler place to live.

He lived in the Batcave, drove the Batmobile, which had a crime lab and a closed-circuit television in the back, and owned a Batplane. He also kept a lot of tools in his utility belt, including knockout gas, a smoke screen and a radio.

”Since he had no superpowers, he had to rely only on his physical and his mental skills,” said Allan Asherman, the librarian of DC Comics.

Playwright and director Moss Hart was born on October 24th in 1904.

A distinguished librettist, director, and playwright who was particularly renowned for his work with George S. Kaufman. Hart is reported to have written the book for the short-lived “Jonica” in 1930, but his first real Broadway musical credit came three years later when he contributed the sketches to the Irving Berlin revue “As Thousands Cheer.” Subsequent revues for which he co-wrote sketches included “The Show Is On,” “Seven Lively Arts,” and “Inside USA.” During the remainder of the ’30s Hart wrote the librettos for “The Great Waltz” (adapted from the operetta “Waltzes of Vienna”), “Jubilee,” “I’d Rather Be Right” (with Kaufman), and “Sing Out the News” (which he also co-produced with Kaufman and Max Gordon). In 1941 he wrote one of his wittiest and most inventive books for “Lady in Dark,” which starred Gertrude Lawrence, and gave Danny Kaye his first chance on Broadway.

Thereafter, as far as the musical theater was concerned, apart from the occasional revue, Hart concentrated mostly on directing, and sometimes producing, shows such as Irving Berlin’s “Miss Liberty,” and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s smash hits “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.” He won a Tony Award for his work on “My Fair Lady.” His considerable output for the straight theater included “Light up the Sky,” “The Climate of Eden,” “Winged Victory,” and (with Kaufman) “Once in a Lifetime,” “You Can’t Take It With You” (for which they both won the Pulitzer Prize), and “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Hart also wrote the screenplays for two film musicals, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1952) and the 1954 remake of A STAR IS BORN, starring Judy Garland. His absorbing autobiography, ACT ONE, was filmed in 1963 with George Hamilton as Hart and Jason Robards as Kaufman.

Broadway: The American Musical . Stars Over Broadway | PBS

James Schoolcraft Sherman was born on October 24th in 1855. Sherman was Vice President of the United States from March 4, 1909 until he died in office October 30, 1912 (President Taft).

Thursday, October 24th, 1929 — Black Thursday — was the first of the three most significant days of the stock market crash (the others were Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th).

The iPod is 9-years-old today. It was introduced by Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001.

Jim Bunning is 79 today.

Displaying a remarkable consistency during his 17-year career, Jim Bunning became the first pitcher to record 100 wins and 1,000 strikeouts in both the American and National Leagues. He also threw no-hitters in both leagues, including a perfect game on Father’s Day 1964. Accumulated 224 career wins as a seven-time All-Star selection, Bunning was also a leading figure in the founding of the player’s union and later served Kentucky as a United States Senator.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Too bad about the political career. I always liked Bunning as a pitcher. As a senator he has been a raving lunatic on his lucid days.

Pele is 70 today.

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee is 56.

Dwight Yoakam is 54. Yoakam has been in a number of films — he was the nasty boyfriend in Sling Blade — but it’s country music that earned his fame.

With his stripped-down approach to traditional honky tonk and Bakersfield country, Dwight Yoakam helped return country music to its roots in the late ’80s. Like his idols Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams, Yoakam never played by Nashville’s rules; consequently, he never dominated the charts like his contemporary Randy Travis. Then again, Travis never played around with the sound and style of country music like Yoakam. On each of his records, he twists around the form enough to make it seem like he doesn’t respect all of country’s traditions. Appropriately, his core audience was composed mainly of roots rock and rock & roll fans, not the mainstream country audience. Nevertheless, he was frequently able to chart in the country Top Ten, and he remained one of the most respected and adventurous recording country artists well into the ’90s.

allmusic

Weird Al Yankovic is 51.

Johnny Carson was born 85 years ago today. A little luck and many fewer cigarettes and he might be alive today. While he was alive, Carson would have been my choice for the person I’d most like to have dinner with.

He grew up an extremely shy boy, but when he was 12 years old he happened to read a how-to book about magic tricks and he later said that it was the discovery of magic that helped him relate to people. He started writing jokes in college and went on to host a TV game show called “Who Do You Trust?” But his big break came when he took over hosting The Tonight Show from Jack Parr in 1962.

By the mid-1970s, more than 15 million people were watching The Tonight Show every night before they went to bed. When he retired in 1992, he had been on the air for 30 years. He almost never appeared in public again, and died in 2005.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Michael Crichton died two years ago; he would have been 68 today. The Writer’s Almanac (link above) has a interesting entry about Crichton.

John William Heisman was born on this date in 1869. He’s the guy the trophy is named after. The following milestones in Heisman’s career are excerpted from his 1936 obituary in The New York Times and put here in chronological order.

In 1888 he was a member of the Brown football team, and in 1889 of the Pennsylvania varsity football eleven.

He began his coaching career in 1892 at Oberlin College. In 1893 he coached all sports at the University of Akron. From 1895 to 1900 he coached football and baseball at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and from 1900 to 1904 was coach at Clemson College.

From 1904 to 1920 he coached football, baseball and basketball at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he developed the famous “Golden Tornado” teams.

In 1908 he was director of athletics at the Atlanta Athletic Club. From 1910 to 1914 he was president of the Atlanta Baseball Association. In 1920 he coached football at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1923 filled the same position at Washington and Jefferson College. From 1924 to 1927 he was head football coach and director of athletics at Rice Institute, Houston, Texas.

In 1923 and 1924 he was president of the American Football Coaches Association.

For the last six years [before 1936] he had been physical director of the Downtown Athletic Club.

Curly Howard (Jerome Lester Horwitz) was born on this date in 1903. The most popular of the Three Stooges, Curly had no formal training and was often improvising. According to older brother Moe Howard, “If we were going through a scene and he’d forget his words for a moment, you know. Rather than stand, get pale and stop, you never knew what he was going to do. On one occasion he’d get down to the floor and spin around like a top until he remembered what he had to say.” It’s said Curly squandered all his money on wine, food, women, homes, cars, and especially dogs. Sounds like good choices, but they took their toll. Curly Howard died at age 48 in 1952 after a series of strokes.

“N’yuk, n’yuk, n’yuk.”

Three time best actress Oscar nominee Joan Fontaine is 93 today. Miss Fontaine won the Oscar in 1942 for Suspicion. Good genes in that family. Her sister Olivia de Havilland turned 94 in July.

Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing is 91 today.

In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was out grocery shopping when the announcement came, and she came home to find her house swamped with reporters. She was nonplussed about the prize, saying, “Oh Christ! I couldn’t care less. This has been going on for 30 years. I’ve won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I’m delighted to win them all. It’s a royal flush.” And she said, “I can’t say I’m overwhelmed with surprise. I’m 88 years old and they can’t give the Nobel to someone who’s dead, so I think they were probably thinking they’d probably better give it to me now before I’ve popped off.”

By the time she accepted the prize, she was considerably more gracious, saying, “Thank you does not seem enough when you’ve won the best of them all. It is astonishing and amazing.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Christopher Lloyd is 72.

Annette Funicello is 68. At the Disney Archives, once upon a time, I actually saw first-hand something I had often dreamed about in junior high — Annette’s Mouseketeer sweater.

Catherine Deneuve is 67.

Jeff Goldblum is 58.

Ichiro Suzuki is 37.

Slugger Jimmie Foxx was born on October 22, 1907.

A fearsome power hitter whose strength earned him the moniker The Beast, Jimmie Foxx was the anchor of an intimidating Philadelphia Athletics lineup that produced pennant winners from 1929-31. The second batter in history to top 500 home runs, Foxx belted 30 or more homers in 12 consecutive seasons and drove in more than 100 runs 13 consecutive years, including a career-best 175 with Boston in 1938. He won back-to-back MVP Awards in 1932 and ’33, capturing the Triple Crown in the latter year.

Baseball Hall of Fame

It was on this date in 1962, that President Kennedy told the nation about the Soviet missiles in Cuba. From The New York Times report on the speech:

President Kennedy imposed a naval and air “quarantine” tonight on the shipment of offensive military equipment to Cuba.

In a speech of extraordinary gravity, he told the American people that the Soviet Union, contrary to promises, was building offensive missiles and bomber bases in Cuba. He said the bases could handle missiles carrying nuclear warheads up to 2,000 miles.

Thus a critical moment in the cold war was at hand tonight. The President had decided on a direct confrontation with–and challenge to–the power of the Soviet Union.

*****

All this the President recited in an 18-minute radio and television address of a grimness unparalleled in recent times. He read the words rapidly, with little emotion, until he came to the peroration–a warning to Americans of the dangers ahead.

“Let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out,” the President said. “No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred.”

“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are–but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world,” he added.

It was as close as we’ve ever come to nuclear war.

Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Audrey Meadows, is 86.

Whitey Ford is 82.

Edward Whitey Ford was the big-game pitcher on the great Yankees teams of the 1950s and early ’60s, earning him the moniker Chairman of the Board. The wily southpaw’s lifetime record of 236-106 gives him the best winning percentage (.690) of any 20th century pitcher. He paced the American League in victories three times, and in ERA and shutouts twice. The 1961 Cy Young Award winner still holds many World Series records, including 10 wins and 94 strikeouts, once pitching 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the Fall Classic.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Steve Cropper is 69. According to the All Music Guide:

Probably the best-known soul guitarist in the world, Cropper came to prominence in the early ’60s, first with the Mar-Keys (“Last Night”), then as a founding member of Booker T. & the MG’s. A major figure in the Southern soul movement of the ’60s, Cropper made his mark not only as a player and arranger (most notably on classic sides by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett) but as a songwriter as well, co-writing the classic “In the Midnight Hour.”

And Green Onions is the single greatest rock instrumental ever, period (Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Lewis Steinberg, bass; Al Jackson, drums).

M.G.’s stands for the British motor car and not for Memphis Group. Chips Moman of Stax founded the band and named it for his car. Moman had played with Jones in an earlier band, the Triumphs. Stax changed the origin of the M.G.’s story when Moman left the label. Steve Cropper confirmed Moman’s version on Fresh Air in 2007.

Judy Sheindlin (“Judge Judy”) is 68.

The daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher is 54. That’s Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia, and once Mrs. Paul Simon.

Ken Watanabe is 51.

One of the Kardashian sisters — and does it really matter which one — is 30 today.

Dizzy Gillespie was born on October 21, 1917.

Dizzy Gillespie was one of the principal developers of bop in the early 1940s, and his styles of improvising and trumpet playing were imitated widely in the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, he is one of the most influential players in the history of jazz.
. . .

Early in 1953, someone accidentally fell on Gillespie’s trumpet, which was sitting upright on a trumpet stand, and bent the bell back. Gillespie played it, discovered that he liked the sound, and from that point on had trumpets built for him with the bell pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle. The design is his visual trademark — for more than three decades he was virtually the only major trumpeter in jazz playing such an instrument.

PBS – JAZZ A Film by Ken Burns

Alfred Nobel was born on this date in 1833. He was the owner of a weapons manufacturer and inventor of dynamite.

Nobel’s enormous legacy — the impetus to leave the prize money now awarded to Nobel laureates — actually stemmed from an event that left him with feelings of great indignation. After his older brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper printed a scathing obituary of Alfred Nobel, who was in fact alive and well. The writer was allegedly confused about who had died, and he used the obituary to write a condemnation of Alfred’s life and work. “Le marchand de la mort est mort (‘The merchant of death is dead’),” the newspaper proclaimed — and also, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

Alfred Nobel read the obituary about himself and was so upset that this was to be his legacy that he rewrote his will to establish a set of prizes celebrating humankind’s greatest achievements.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2009)

That great sixth game of the World Series where Carlton Fisk hit the winning home run in the 12th to give the Red Sox a 7-6 victory over the Reds was 35 years ago tonight.

Today is the birthday

… of William Christopher. M.A.S.H.‘s Father Francis Mulcahy is 78.

… of Hall-of-Fame pitcher Juan Marichal, 73.

The pride of both the Dominican Republic and the Giants, Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez won 243 games and lost only 142 over 16 marvelous seasons. The high-kicking right-hander enjoyed six 20-win seasons, hurled a no-hitter in 1963 and was named to nine All-Star teams. The Dominican Dandy twice led the National League in complete games and shutouts, finishing 244 contests during his career, while fanning 2,303 and compiling a 2.89 ERA. After his playing days, Marichal became minister of sports in his homeland.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Tom Petty; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 60.

In a sense, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are America’s band. Durable, resourceful, hard-working, likeable and unpretentious, they rank among the most capable and classic rock bands of the last quarter century. They’ve mastered the idiom’s fundamentals and digested its history while stretching themselves creatively and contributing to rock’s legacy. Moreover they are, like such compatriots as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, a people’s band, writing of everyday struggles and frustrations while offering redemption through tough-minded, big-hearted, tuneful songs.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Calvin Cordozar Broadus. Snoop Dogg is 39.

… of John Krasinski. He’s 31.

Actor Jerry Orbach was born on this date in 1935.

Hall-of-famer Mickey Mantle was born on this date in 1931 and died in 1995.

Mickey Mantle was a star from the start, parlaying a talent for the game and boyish good looks into iconic status. In spite of a series of devastating injuries, Mantle accumulated a long list of impressive accomplishments, finishing his 18-year career with 536 home runs and a .298 batting average. The switch-hitting Commerce Comet won three MVP Awards (1956, ’57, ’62) and a Triple Crown (1956). He contributed to 12 pennants and seven World Series titles in his first 14 seasons while establishing numerous World Series records, including most home runs (18).

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Bela Lugosi was born on this date in 1882. The Romanian-born actor (part of Austria-Hungary then) was best known for playing Count Dracula in the 1931 film. Lugosi died in 1956.

Today is the birthday

… of Bob Strauss, the politico and diplomat. Ambassador Strauss is 92.

… of John LeCarre. The author is 79.

… of Peter Max. The artist is 73.

… of John Lithgow. He’s 65. He’s become somewhat a buffoon on TV in the sitcoms and commercials. Makes it hard to remember that he’s twice been nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar — Terms of Endearment and The World According to Garp.

… of Jeannie C. Riley, singer of the 1968 hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.” She, too, is 65.

… of Jennifer Holliday. The Tony Award winner is 50.

… of Evander Holyfield, 48.

… of one-time first daughter Amy Carter. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s little girl is 43.

… of academy award nominee for directing Jason Reitman. He’s 33. The nomination was for Juno.

Robert Reed was born on this date in 1932. A fine actor but one who will always be remembered most as the dad on The Brady Bunch. Reed’s best TV role was as Kenneth Preston, son in the excellent early 1960s father-son lawyer drama The Defenders. His father was played by E. G. Marshall. Reed died in 1992.

Winston Hubert McIntosh was born on this date in 1944. A founding member of The Wailers, Peter Tosh also was an international solo star and songwriter. He was shot and killed along with five others by a friend during an argument on September 11, 1987.

It’s Chuck Berry’s birthday. He’s 84.

While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, “Maybellene.” Combined with quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics full of sly insinuations about cars and girls, Berry laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance. The song included a brief but scorching guitar solo built around his trademark double-string licks. Accompanied by long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including Willie Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire—which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven”—is required listening for any serious rock fan and required learning for any serious rock musician.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

And, if that weren’t enough, Keith Jackson is 82. Whoa, Nelly.

Mindy of Mork & Mindy, that is, Pam Dawber, is 60.

Joanie Cunningham of Happy Days, that is, Erin Moran, is 50.

Wynton Marsalis is 49. Zac Efron is 23.

Arthur Miller, the playwright (The Crucible, Death of a Salesman) and one-time husband of Marilyn Monroe, was born on this date in 1915.

In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken.

American Masters

Miller used the money he made from All My Sons to buy 400 acres of farmland in Connecticut. In 1948, he moved to Connecticut by himself and spent several months building a 10-by-12-foot cabin by hand. As he sawed the wood and pounded the nails, he thought about the main characters of his next play: a salesman, his wife, and his two sons. He knew how the play would begin, but he wouldn’t let himself start writing until he had finished the cabin. When it was finally completed, he woke up one morning and started writing. He wrote all day, had dinner, and then wrote until he had finished the first act in the middle of the night. When he finally got in bed to go to sleep, he found that his cheeks were wet with tears, and his throat was sore from speaking and shouting the lines of dialogue as he wrote.

The play was Death of a Salesman (1949), about a man named Willy Loman who loses his job and realizes that he doesn’t have much to show for his life’s work. Miller wrote, “For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2009)

Margarita Carmen Cansino was born on this date in 1918. That’s her in the photo known by then as Rita Hayworth. She was married five times including Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan (she had a daughter with each of them).

Montgomery Clift was born on October 17 in 1920. Clift was nominated for the best actor Oscar three times and supporting actor once. He played Prewitt, the bugler who won’t box, in From Here to Eternity.

It’s also the birthday

… of Jimmy Breslin. The columnist is 80.

… of Margot Kidder. Lois Lane is 62.

… of George Wendt. Norm is 62.

Sam: What’ll you have Normie?
Norm: Well, I’m in a gambling mood Sammy. I’ll take a glass of whatever comes out of that tap.
Sam: Looks like beer, Norm.
Norm: Call me Mister Lucky.

… of country singer Alan Jackson; he’s 52.

… of golfer Ernie Els, 41.

And of Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. He’s 38, as is Wyclef Jean.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on this date in 1890. His family moved to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892 and he graduated from Abilene High School in 1909.

Eisenhower attended the U.S. Military Academy, class of 1915, the class the stars fell on — of 164 graduates, 59 attained the rank of general, led by Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. Eisenhower never saw combat first hand during his 37 year army career.

Military leadership of the victorious Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice elected him President of the United States. His enormous political success was largely personal, for he was not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb talent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war confrontations with Soviet power around the world and to lead the country to domestic prosperity.

Eisenhower’s gift for inspiring confidence in himself perplexed some analysts because he was not a dashing battlefield general nor a masterly military tactician; apparently what counted most in his generalship also impressed the voters most: an ability to harmonize diverse groups and disparate personalities into a smoothly functioning coalition.

Obituary, The New York Times, 1969

John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, would have been 100 today. Ten national championships in 12 years.

Today is the birthday

… of former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. Guess he knew what he was talking about because he’s 94 today.

… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds is 83.

… of former Nixon White House Counsel and convicted multiple felon John Dean, 72 today.

… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 71.

… of the judge of Night Court, Harry Anderson, who is 58 today.

… of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. She’s 36.

… of Usher. He’s 32.

Edward Estlin Cummings was born October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We know him as e.e. cummings.

In his verse, Cummings tended to substitute verbs for nouns, he used patently eccentric punctuation, and he disregarded norms of capitalization. But despite unconventional style, he wrote about traditional themes, stuff like love and nature.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge–my girl’s tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.

Today is the birthday

… of Margaret Thatcher, 85.

… of Melinda Dillon. That’s the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She’s 71. Dillon was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for that role and for her part in Absence of Malice. But best of all, she was the mom in The Christmas Story.

Mr. Parker: Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian.
Mrs. Parker: Uh, I think that says FRAGILE, dear.
Mr. Parker: Oh, yeah.

… of Paul Simon. He’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” at 69.

Paul Simon is among the most erudite and daring songsmiths in popular music. After the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel in 1970, Simon embarked on a fruitful solo career that’s been notable for lyrical acuity, impeccable musicianship and stylistic daring. While Simon and Garfunkel worked largely (but not exclusively) in the folk idiom, Simon the solo artist has roamed wherever his muse has taken him – and that has literally meant around the world. His is not so much a conventional career in music as an odyssey of discovery using “intuitive flashes, synaptic leaps and shorthand logic” (in Simon’s own words) to help him on his way.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Demond Wilson. Sanford’s son is 64.

… of Sammy Hagar, 63.

However, Van Halen bounced back strong following Roth’s departure. The group recruited Sammy Hagar, who sang and played guitar. Hagar had started out with the hard-rock group Montrose and had a highly successful solo career. He fit well with Van Halen, with whom he was more personally compatible than his predecessor. In fact, the newly harmonious group scored its first Number One album with 5150, on which Hagar handles lead vocals.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Marie Osmond. She’s 51.

… of Jerry Rice. He’s 48.

… of Kate Walsh, 43. “The real question is, when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?”

… of skater Nancy Kerrigan. She’s 41.

… of Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is 39.

The woman known as Molly Pitcher was born on October 13, 1754.

An Artillery wife, Mary Hays McCauly (better known as Molly Pitcher) shared the rigors of Valley Forge with her husband, William Hays. Her actions during the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 became legendary. That day at Monmouth was as hot as Valley Forge was cold. Someone had to cool the hot guns and bathe parched throats with water.

Across that bullet-swept ground, a striped skirt fluttered. Mary Hays McCauly was earning her nickname “Molly Pitcher” by bringing pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water to the exhausted and thirsty men. She also tended to the wounded and once, heaving a crippled Continental soldier up on her strong young back, carried him out of reach of hard-charging Britishers. On her next trip with water, she found her artilleryman husband back with the guns again, replacing a casualty. While she watched, Hays fell wounded. The piece, its crew too depleted to serve it, was about to be withdrawn. Without hesitation, Molly stepped forward and took the rammer staff from her fallen husband’s hands. For the second time on an American battlefield, a woman manned a gun. (The first was Margaret Corbin during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.) Resolutely, she stayed at her post in the face of heavy enemy fire, ably acting as a matross (gunner).

For her heroic role, General Washington himself issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. Thereafter, she was widely hailed as “Sergeant Molly.” A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A sculpture on the battle monument commemorates her courageous deed.

Fort Sill History

Burr Tillstrom was born on October 13, 1917. He was a puppeteer, creator of Kukla, Ollie and a passel of other characters who interacted with actress Fran Allison in the early days of television. Kukla, Fran and Ollie began in Chicago and then was on NBC each evening Monday through Friday, shortened to 15 minutes, then made weekly, but lasting until 1957. Early on the show won a Peabody Award for, “whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort.” Time said KFO, “flourished in this desert as an oasis of intelligent fantasy.”

Kukla, Fran and Ollie was the first children’s show to be equally popular with children and adults. The show’s immense popularity stemmed from its simplicity, gentle fun and frolic and adult wit. Burr Tillstrom’s Kuklapolitan Players differed from typical puppets in that the humor derived from satire and sophisticated wit rather than slapstick comedy. At the height of the show’s popularity, the cast received 15,000 letters a day, and its ratings were comparable to shows featuring Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan.

The basic format of the show was simple: Fran Allison stood in front of a small stage and interacted with the characters. The format was derived from the puppet act Tillstrom performed for the RCA Victor exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

That’s Tillstrom with his stars.

Art Tatum was born on October 13th in 1909.

It’s hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum’s piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, “I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.”

NPR : Art Tatum

Leonard Alfred Schneider was born on this date in 1925. We know him as Lenny Bruce.

On April 1, 1964, four New York City vice squad officers attended Bruce’s performance at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. The officers arrested Bruce and owner Howard Solomon following Bruce’s 10:00 P.M. show. Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh presented a grand jury with a typed partial script of Bruce’s performance including references to Jackie Kennedy trying to “save her ass” after her husband’s assassination, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “nice tits,” sexual intimacy with a chicken, “pissing in the sink,” the Lone Ranger sodomizing Tonto, and St. Paul giving up “fucking” for Lent. The jury indicted Bruce on the obscenity charge. The trial before a three-judge court in New York City that followed stands as a remarkable moment in the history of free speech. Both the prosecution and defense presented parades of well-known witnesses to either denounce Bruce’s performance as the worst sort of gutter humor or celebrate it as a powerful and insightful social commentary. Among the witnesses testifying in support of Bruce were What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, sociologist Herbert Gans, and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. In the end, the censors won. Voting 2 to 1, the court found Bruce guilty of violating New York’s obscenity laws and sentenced him to “four months in the workhouse.”

Famous Trials: The Lenny Bruce Trial

Bruce died of a drug overdose in 1966.