Category: Birthdays

Today is the birthday of Margaret Sanger, born on this date in 1879. From her obituary in The New York Times (1966):

As the originator of the phrase “birth control” and its best-known advocate, Margaret Sanger survived Federal indictments, a brief jail term, numerous lawsuits, hundreds of street-corner rallies and raids on her clinics to live to see much of the world accept her view that family planning is a basic human right.

The dynamic, titian-haired woman whose Irish ancestry also endowed her with unfailing charm and persuasive wit was first and foremost a feminist. She sought to create equality between the sexes by freeing women from what she saw as sexual servitude.

Hal Wallis was born on this date in 1899. A producer, Wallis was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar 15 times, winning for Casablanca in 1942. Wallis died in 1986.

The itinerant hall-of-fame basketball coach, Larry Brown, is 70 today.

Davenie Johanna Heatherton was born 66 years ago today. She was called Joey and had a lot of appearances when she was 16-25 on various TV shoes with older male singers — Perry Como, Dean Martin, Andy Williams — Bob Hope’s Christmas shows for the troops. It was mostly about her looks.

Sam Neill was born in Northern Ireland 63 years ago today. Neill has appeared in numerous films, most famously The Hunt for Red October, Jurassic Park and as the ass-of-a-husband in The Piano.

Amy Winehouse has made it to 27.

William McKinley died on this date in 1901, seven days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz. Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States, and the youngest ever. He was 42 years, 10-1/2 months old.

And it was on September 14th in 1814 that Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Writer’s Almanac has a good telling of the tale.

Dickie Moore of the “Our Gang” films is 85 today. That’s him with the watermelon and knife in the poster from a re-release of a 1932 film.

George Jones is 79 today.

In many ways Jones is one of country music’s last vital links to its own rural past—a relic from a long-gone time and place before cable TV and FM rock radio and shopping malls, an era when life still revolved around the Primitive Baptist Church, the honky-tonk down the road, and Saturday nights listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. The fact that Jones himself has changed little over the years, and at times seems to be genuinely bewildered by the immensity of his own talent and the acclaim it has brought him, have merely enhanced his credibility.

Like Hank Williams before him, Jones has emerged—quite unintentionally—as an archetype of an era that most likely will never come around again. He is a singer who has earned his stature the hard way: by living his songs. His humble origins, his painful divorces, his legendary drinking and drugging, and his myriad financial, legal, and emotional problems have, over the years, merely confirmed his sincerity and enhanced his mystique, earning him a cachet that, in country music circles, approaches canonization.

Country Music Hall of Fame

Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits

Maria Muldaur, famous for “Midnight at the Oasis,” is 67.

Joe Pantoliano is 59.

Ruben Studdard is 32.

Yao Ming is 30.

Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson is 29 today.

Henry Louis Mencken was born in Baltimore on September 12th in 1880.

At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, “When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Jesse Owens was born on September 12th in 1913. ESPN.com ranked Owens the sixth best athlete of the 20th century:

On May 25 [1935] in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens couldn’t even bend over to touch his knees. But as the sophomore settled in for his first race, he said the pain “miraculously disappeared.”

3:15 — The “Buckeye Bullet” ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the world record.

3:25 — In his only long jump, he leaped 26-8 1/4, a world record that would last 25 years.

3:34 — His 20.3 seconds bettered the world record in the 220-yard dash.

4:00 — With his 22.6 seconds in the 220-yard low hurdles, he became the first person to break 23 seconds in the event.

For most athletes, Jesse Owens’ performance one spring afternoon in 1935 would be the accomplishment of a lifetime. In 45 minutes, he established three world records and tied another.

But that was merely an appetizer for Owens. In one week in the summer of 1936, on the sacred soil of the Fatherland, the master athlete humiliated the master race.

This from Owens’ New York Times obituary in 1980:

The United States Olympic track team, of 66 athletes, included 10 blacks. The Nazis derided the Americans for relying on what the Nazis called an inferior race, but of the 11 individual gold medals in track won by the American men, six were won by blacks.

The hero was Mr. Owens. He won the 100-meter dash in 10.3 seconds, the 200-meter dash in 20.7 seconds and the broad jump at 26 feet 5 1/2 inches, and he led off for the United States team that won the 400-meter relay in 39.8 seconds.

His individual performances broke two Olympic records and, except for an excessive following wind, would have broken the third. The relay team broke the world record. His 100-meter and 200-meter times would have won Olympic medals through 1964, his broad- jump performance through 1968.

Actually, Mr. Owens had not been scheduled to run in the relay. Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were, but American Olympic officials, led by Avery Brundage, wanted to avoid offending the Nazis. They replaced Mr. Glickman and Mr. Stoller, both Jews, with Mr. Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, both blacks.

Two immortal football coaches share this birthday. Paul “Bear” Bryant was born on this date in 1913. Tom Landry was born on this date in 1924.

U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii is 86. Akaka is the third oldest U.S. senator, but the second oldest from Hawaii (Senator Daniel Inouye is four days older.) Akaka is the only senator with Hawaiian and Chinese ancestry.

Actor Earl Holliman is 82. Holliman is perhaps best know as Lt. Bill Crowley on Police Woman with Angie Dickinson.

David Broder is 81.

Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is 67.

Musician Leo Kottke is 65.

One-time Oscar nominee Amy Madigan is 60. She was nominated for Twice in a Lifetime in 1985. She was the wife who owned the farm in Field of Dreams. Ms. Madigan has been married to Ed Harris 27 years.

Sportscaster Lesley Visser is 57. Visser was the first woman to receive the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.

Oscar nominee for best supporting actress for her performance in Sideways, Virginia Madsen is 49.

Kristy McNichol is 48.

Harry Connick Jr. is 43. He grew up in New Orleans where his father was D.A.

Ludacris is 33.

William Sydney Porter was born on this date in 1852. We know him as O. Henry.

The feds did an audit of the bank he’d been working at, and when they found a bunch of discrepancies, they decided to indict him on federal embezzlement charges. His wife’s dad posted bail for him, but instead of sticking around for trial, O. Henry fled to New Orleans and then to Honduras, where he stayed for months. But when he found out that his beloved wife was on the verge of dying from her tuberculosis, he came back to Texas and turned himself in. Soon after, his wife died. He stood trial, was convicted of embezzlement, and was sent away to a federal penitentiary in Ohio.

He wrote short stories there, and he came up with the pseudonym O. Henry. Magazine editors were clueless that the stories they published were written by an inmate locked up in a federal penitentiary.

He got out of jail and wrote fast and furiously, about 400 short stories in those years following his release. He became famous, and an alcoholic, and he died less than a decade after getting out of jail, at the age of 47, from liver disease.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

A particular favorite is The Ransom of Red Chief.

D. H. Lawrence was born on this date in 1885.

He had an incredibly difficult life. He was a teacher, but he caught tuberculosis as a young man and eventually became too sick to teach. During World War I, the British government suspected he was a German spy, because his wife was German and he opposed the war. Most of all, he struggled against censorship. More than almost any other writer at the time, he believed that in order to write about human experience, novelists had to write explicitly about sex. When he published his first important novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), he found that his editor had deleted numerous erotic passages without his permission. When he published his novel The Rainbow in 1915, Scotland Yard seized most of the printed copies under charges of obscenity. He was blacklisted as an obscene writer and none of the magazines in England would publish anything he wrote. He finished Women in Love in 1916, but couldn’t get it published until 1920, and even then he could only publish it privately.

Lawrence was finally allowed to leave England when World War I was over, and he was so happy that he traveled everywhere, to Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], Australia, Tahiti, Mexico, and New Mexico.

He eventually moved back to Europe and worked on his last big novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). It was banned in England and America. One British critic called it “the most evil outpouring that has ever besmirched the literature of our country.” It was not widely available until 1960, when Penguin published an unexpurgated edition.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (2009)

Today is the birthday

… of Arnold Palmer. Arnie is 81 today. The family story is that Palmer came on to her when he met our mom about 50 years ago when she was 35 (and had a 15-year-old future blogger son).

… of Jose Feliciano. He’s 65. Feliciano was one of the first to stylize The Star Spangled Banner, giving it a Latin touch at Tiger Stadium during the 1968 World Series.

… of Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Bob Lanier. He’s 62.

… of Amy Irving. She’s 57. Ms. Irving was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in Yentl.

… of Colin Firth. He’s 50.

… of future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Randy Johnson. He’s 47.

And it’s the birthday of Roger Maris, born on this date in 1934. The following is from The Official Roger Maris Web Site:

Roger and teammate Mickey Mantle entertained baseball fans throughout the summer of ’61 as the two New York Yankee sluggers chased the record many called the most cherished in all of sports. Mickey dropped out of the home run race early due to an illness, but finished with a career high 54 home runs. Roger tied Ruth on September 26, hitting his 60th home run. He then hit his 61st home run on the final day of the season, October 1, 1961, against the Boston Red Sox to set a new record. The Yankees won the game, 1 to 0, and later went on to win the World Series.

Roger was voted the Most Valuable Player in the American league for the second straight year, as he led the league in home runs and RBI’s. He was also named the 1961 Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year.

During his career, Roger Maris played in seven World Series and seven All-Star games. He hit 275 career home runs and won the Gold Glove Award for outstanding defensive play. The New York Yankees retired his number “9” in 1984.

Roger Maris is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Stephen Jay Gould evolutionary biologist and science historian was born on this date in 1941.

He campaigned against the teaching of creationism, but wasn’t anti-religious. Gould once said, “If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.” He argued that science and religion shouldn’t be viewed as opposed to each other, but simply distinct from each other: non-overlapping disciplines that shouldn’t be used to try to explain aspects of the other. The National Academy of Sciences adopted his stance, saying officially a decade ago: “Demanding that they [religion and science] be combined detracts from the glory of each.”

Among his best-known works are the treatises The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Full House (1996), and Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998). He taught at Harvard for most of his life, and later at NYU.

Stephen Jay Gould died from cancer in 2002 at the age of 60. Published posthumously were his books The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities (2003) and Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball (2003).

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was on September 10, 1857.

It was on September 10, 1813, that Oliver Hazard Perry sent the message, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” The enemy was a British fleet. Perry’s fleet had defeated it in the Battle of Lake Erie.

John Smith was elected president of Jamestown 402 years ago today.

Cliff Robertson is 87. Robertson won the best acting Oscar in 1969 for Charly. Most recently he played Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.

Joe Theismann is 61. Allegedly his name was pronounced Thees-man until he went to Notre Dame and they realized that Thighs-man rhymed with Heisman (as in the Trophy). No, really. (Theismann was runner-up to Jim Plunkett of Stanford for the Heisman in 1970.) NewMexiKen was at RFK that Monday night in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor broke Theismann’s leg.

Once-upon-a-time child star Angela Cartwright is 58. She was Danny Thomas’s step-daughter, Brigitta in Sound of Music, and Penny Robinson in Lost in Space.

Hugh Grant is 50. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?

Adam Sandler turns 44 today.

Best supporting actress nominee for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is 30.

Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.

Though his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purist form. His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted the R&B charts beginning with the Top Ten appearance of “Mr. Pitiful” in 1965, none of his singles fared better than #21 on the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” That landmark song, recorded just four days before Redding’s death, went to #1 and stayed there for four weeks in early 1968.

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Redding wrote the song known as Aretha Franklin’s signature hit, “Respect.”

Try a Little Tenderness

Tolstoy was born 182 years ago today.

Elvis Presley’s first famous TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was 54 years ago tonight.

And the Compromise of 1850 was put in place 160 years ago today with the admission of California as the 31st state and the creation of New Mexico and Utah territories.

Elizabeth was born on September 7th in 1533. That’s the queen Virginia is named after.

Anna Mary Robertson was born on September 7th in 1860. Grandma Moses lived until 1961, and only started painting at age 76.

Two-time best director Oscar winner, Elia Kazan was born on September 7th in 1909. Kazan won for Gentleman’s Agreement and On the Waterfront. He had three other directing nominations.

David Packard was born on September 7th in 1912. He’s the “P” in HP.

Senator Daniel Inouye was born on September 7th in 1924. He’s 86 today.

Tenor saxophonist Theodore Rollins — Sonny Rollins — was born on September 7th in 1930. He is 80 today.

Buddy Holly was born on September 7th in 1936. Just 22 when the music died.

Gloria Gaynor was born on September 7th in 1949. Still surviving at 61.

Go on now go walk out the door
just turn around now
’cause you’re not welcome anymore
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
Did you think I’d crumble
Did you think I’d lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh as long as i know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
and I’ll survive
I will survive (hey-hey)

Julie Kavner was born on September 7th in 1951. NewMexiKen liked her best in Awakenings, but we all know her as the voice of Marge Simpson. She’s 59 today.

W. Earl Brown was born on September 7th in 1963. He was Dan Dority of Deadwood and 47 today.

Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted an image electronically on this date in 1927. ESPN was founded on this date in 1979.

Jane Curtin is 63. JoAnne Worley is 73. Swoosie Kurtz is 66.

Jeff Foxworthy is 52. Some Foxworthiness:

• “I’ve been to all 50 states, and traveled this whole country, and 90 percent of the people are good folks. The rest of them take after the other side of the family.”
• “Did you know babies are nauseated by the smell of a clean shirt?’
• “Watching a baby being born is a little like watching a wet St. Bernard coming in through the cat door.”
• “If your working television sits on top of your non-working television, you might be a redneck.”
• “Now, it’s true I married my wife for her looks… but not the ones she’s been givin’ me lately.”
• “If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.'”
• “You may be a redneck if… your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand.”

Rosie Perez is 46. Ms. Perez was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar in 1994 for Fearless.

Macy Gray is 43.

Author Alice Sebold is 47.

She was a freshman in college when one night she was attacked while she was walking home, dragged into an underground tunnel, and raped. She thought that she was going to be murdered throughout the experience. When she later talked to the police, they said that a girl had recently been murdered in that same tunnel, and so she should consider herself lucky for having survived. A few weeks later, Sebold spotted the rapist on the street, and she went to the police. He was arrested, and Sebold testified against him at the trial. The rapist was convicted and received the maximum sentence, and Sebold thought that the end of the trial would put the experience behind her.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Follow The Writer’s Almanac link to learn how the aftermath led to Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, the best-selling book of 2002.

Author Robert M. Pirsig was born on this date in 1928.

He’s the author of the cult classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974), a book that has sold more than 5 million copies, which is a lot for a book on philosophy.
It’s an account of his road trip from Minnesota to California, and his quest to reconcile Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. The book begins:

“I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it’s this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I’m wondering what it’s going to be like in the afternoon.

“In the wind are pungent odors from the marshes by the road. We are in an area of the Central Plains filled with thousands of duck hunting sloughs, heading northwest from Minneapolis toward the Dakotas. […] I’m happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that. Tensions disappear along old roads like this.”

The Guardian by Joseph Mills | The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

It’s a great book.

Jane Addams was born on September 6th in 1860.

Miss Addams has been called “the greatest woman in the world,” the “mother of social service,” “the greatest woman internationalist” and the “first citizen of Chicago.” With her idealism, serene, unafraid, militant, was always paramount. Devoted to the cause of social and political reform, to the betterment of the economic condition of the masses, to world peace and to internationalism, Miss Addams’s influence was world-wide. She was, perhaps, the world’s best-known and best-loved woman.

She made enemies. Her views were sometimes considered dangerously radical. Socialists and other radicals met at Hull House, and her opponents sometimes forgot that her liberal attitude in permitting such meetings did not include a membership in the groups she tolerated. In the World War her efforts for peace were unabated even when the United States entered the struggle and the wartime hysteria which ensued obscured for a time the American public’s realization of Miss Addams’s purity of purpose and character.

Above from Ms. Addams New York Times obituary in 1935.

It’s amazing how much some people resent it when you treat people less fortunate with love, care and fairness.

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette was born on this date in 1757. Not yet 20, Lafayette was commissioned a major general in the American army by the Continental Congress. (It helped that he served without pay and funded his own troops.) Lafayette was wounded at Brandywine, served Washington loyally at Valley Forge and during an attempted cabal against the Commander-in-Chief, saved American troops and supplies in Rhode Island, was instrumental in obtaining vital French assistance from Louis XVI, and was on the field at Yorktown in 1781 when the British surrendered. By then Lafayette was 24.

Jesse James was born on this date in 1847. If James were alive today, he’d be the kind of guy who’d park a Ryder truck in front of a federal building. He was not the Robin Hood character many learned, but rather a racist, anti-emancipation, anti-union murdering terrorist long after the civil war had effectively decided the larger matters. See T.J. Stiles masterful Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.

“As this patient biography makes clear, violence came to Jesse James more or less with his mother’s milk.” — Larry McMurtry.

“Overall, this is the biography of a violent criminal whose image was promoted and actions extenuated by those who saw him as a useful weapon against black rights and Republican rule.” — Eric Foner

John Milton Cage was born on this date in 1912. On his death in 1992, The New York Times described Cage as a “prolific and influential composer whose Minimalist works have long been a driving force in the world of music, dance and art.” Cage’s most influential and famous piece is 4’33”. It consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The work was among National Public Radio’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.

The piece, premiered in 1952, directs someone to close the lid of a piano, set a stopwatch, and sit in silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Musicians and critics alike initially thought the piece a joke. But its premiere pianist, who never played a note, calls it his most intense listening experience. “4:33” speaks to the nature of sound and the musical nature of silence.

Paul Volcker is 83. Bob Newhart is 81. Carol Lawrence is 78. Raquel Welch is 70. Michael Keaton is 59.

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola)* was founded on this date in 1781. We call it L.A.

The Edsel was introduced by the Ford Motor Company 53 years ago today, on Henry Ford II’s birthday. The car was named for his father, the only child of Henry and Clara Ford.

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard on this date in 1957 in an attempt to prevent nine African-American students from entering Little Rock Central High School. Eventually President Eisenhower responded with the 101st Airborne.

Tom Watson (61) and Raymond Floyd (67) share this birthday. Between them they won 12 major golf championships but Watson (8) never won the PGA and Floyd (4) never won The Open [British].

Beyoncé is 29.

Beyoncé Knowles is one of the reigning queens of pop music, and one of the few pop stars left with a wholesome, good-girl image. She has sold more than 75 million records and as a member of the trio Destiny’s Child. Ms. Knowles was also the top winner at the Grammy Awards on Jan. 31, 2010, her six prizes the most in one night for any woman in the awards’ 52-year history.

Ms. Knowles has also acted in several films. In “Cadillac Records” she played the legendary blues singer Etta James, a former heroin addict and the daughter of a prostitute. Her role as the hard-living and emotionally scarred singer altered the direction of her latest album, “I Am…Sasha Fierce” (Music World/Columbia Records). The film opened in December 2008. Ms. Knowles’s previous work in “Dreamgirls” (2006) earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

The New York Times

Mitzi Gaynor is 79.

Richard Wright was born 102 years ago today. This from his obituary in The New York Times in 1960:

Mr. Wright was hailed by critics as the most eloquent spokesman for the American Negro in this generation and one of the most important literary talents of contemporary America.

His greatest success, both financial and literary, was “Native Son,” a harsh, realistic, brutal, angry novel that appeared in 1940. This story was based partly on Wright’s own experiences in the Chicago slums and partly on the case of Robert Nixon, a Chicago Negro who was put to death in the electric chair in 1938 for the murder of a white girl.

The novel won almost universal acclaim from reviewers. Charles Poore in The New York Times said that it was “enormously stirring,” and Peter Monro Jack, writing in The Sunday Times Book Review, called it the “Negro American tragedy.”

“Native Son” was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and enjoyed a large sale not only in the United States but also in most other countries, including the Soviet Union.

His next big success was the autobiography of his youth, “Black Boy,” issued in 1944. This was also a Book-of-the-Month Club choice and sold throughout the world. After World War II, Mr. Wright expatriated himself to Paris, where he could live more congenially with his white wife, Ellen Poplar of Brooklyn, whom he had married in 1940.

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* The Spanish mission at the Pecos Pueblo had a similar name: Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula de los Pecos. Porciúncula or Porziuncola is the name of a small chapel near Assisi, Italy, where St. Francis established the Franciscan Order in the early 13th century.

Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorfon in what is now the Czech Republic on this date in 1875. Porsche was an automotive engineer instrumental in the early development and racing of Austrian and German cars, notable at Austro-Daimler (1906-1923) and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (1923-1929). He developed the compressor for Mercedes-Benz and the torsion bar suspension with his own design company in 1931. And he was the leader in the development of the Volkswagen, which began production just before World War II.

It was, however, Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche, the first Ferdinand Porsche’s son, who built the race and sports cars we recognize today, beginning in 1948.

It’s pronounced like the name Portia — por-sha.

Mark Hopkins was born on this date in 1813. Hopkins came to California in 1849, but to become a merchant not a miner. With Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, Hopkins established the California Pacific to build east to Utah from Sacramento as part of the first transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific eventually merged with the Southern Pacific, which they — The Big Four — also owned. Today it is part of the Union Pacific, one of the four remaining major rail lines.

Mort Walker is 87 today. He’s the creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey.

Al Jardine, the only member of the original Beach Boys not related to the others, is 68 today. He sang the lead on “Help Me, Rhonda.”

Writer Malcolm Gladwell is 47.

Parts of what would become his first book first appeared in The New Yorker magazine, where he started as a staff writer in 1996. He received a million-dollar advance for that first book, published in 2000 as The Tipping Point. Since then, he’s written Blink (2005) and Outliers (2008). He said about his books: “The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, I wanted to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is.”

His most recent book is What the Dog Saw (2009).

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Charlie Sheen is 45.

Shaun White is 24.

The Treaty of Paris that formerly ended the American war with Great Britain was signed on this date in 1783, more than eight years after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.

Article 1:

His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.

Former senator but still a jackass, Alan Simpson is 79 today. Why is someone 79 years old co-heading a commission on how to manage the deficit? (His co-chair is just 65. Have we no young people in this country? No one with a stake in the future?)

Hall of fame basketball coach John Thompson is 69 today.

Terry Bradshaw is 62, Mark Harmon 59 and Jimmy Connors 58 today.

Harmon’s father was “Old 98,” Tom Harmon, a football great at Michigan and for the L.A. Rams. Mark himself played quarterback at UCLA, where he graduated cum laude.

Keanu Reeves is 46.

And Salma Hayek is 44. Ms. Hayek received a best actress Oscar nomination for Frida.

It was on the morning of September 2, 1945, that the Japanese officially surrendered to Gen. Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. MacArthur signed the articles at 9:07 am Tokyo time, ending World War II. President Truman declared Sunday, September 2nd V-J Day in the U.S.

Lily Tomlin is 71 today.

Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees is 64.

Barry, Maurice [d. 2003] and Robin Gibb — better known as the Bee Gees — are among the most successful vocal groups in rock and roll history. They rank sixth on the all-time top-sellers list, having sold 64 million albums to date. Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees. The trio’s contributions to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever pushed that soundtrack album past the 40 million mark. It reigned as the top-selling album in history until Michael Jackson’s Thriller — an album that Jackson has acknowledged was inspired by Saturday Night Fever — surpassed it in the Eighties. Saturday Night Fever and 1979’s Spirits Having Flown combined to yield six #1 hits, making the Bee Gees the only group in pop history to write, produce and record that many consecutive chart-topping singles.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Dr. Phil is 60.

Gloria Estefan is 53.

Dee Dee Myers — remember her? — she’s just 49.

The only undefeated heavyweight champion (1952-1956), Rocky Marciano was born on September 1st in 1923. He died in a small plane crash the day before he turned 46 in 1969. Marciano was the Seabiscuit of boxing.

For a heavyweight, he was considered too short (5-10 1/4) and too light (183-189 pounds) for most of his fights. His reach of only 68 inches was a distinct disadvantage (no heavyweight champ ever had such a short reach).

But how do you measure a person’s heart? In that area, Marciano possibly had the largest in the sport. He refused to stay down, and he refused to lose. He might be bloodied, but he wouldn’t be beaten.

ESPN Classic

Estee Lauder was born on the first day of September in 1908. She died in 2004.

The great labor leader Walter Reuther was born on the first day of September in 1907. Reuther died in a small plane crash in 1970.

President Nixon called Mr. Reuther’s death “a deep loss not only for organized labor but also for the cause of collective bargaining and the entire American process.” Mr. Nixon added:

“He was a man who was devoted to his cause, spoke for it with eloquence and worked for it tirelessly. While he was outspoken and controversial, even those who disagreed with him had great respect for his ability, integrity and persistence.”

The New York Times

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago on the first day of September in 1875.

He had read Darwin’s book Descent of Man, and he was fascinated by the idea that human beings were related to apes. He began to wonder what might happen if a child from an excessively noble, well-bred family were somehow left in the jungle to be raised by apes. The result was his story “Tarzan of the Apes,” which filled an entire issue of All-Story magazine in October of 1912. It was one of the most popular issues the magazine had ever published, and within six-months, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a full-time writer producing about 400,000 words of short stories every year.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Blind and deaf, Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe on the first day of September in 1904.

On the first day of September in 1773, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London.

Wheatley’s collection was the first volume of poetry by an African-American poet to be published. Regarded as a prodigy by her contemporaries, Wheatley was approximately twenty at the time of the book’s publication.

Born in the Senegambia region of West Africa, she was sold into slavery and transported to Boston at age seven or eight. Purchased off the slave ship by prosperous merchant John Wheatley and his wife Susanna in 1761, the young Phillis was soon copying the English alphabet on a wall in chalk.

Rather than fearing her precociousness, the Wheatleys encouraged it, allowing their daughter Mary to tutor Phillis in reading and writing. She also studied English literature, Latin, and the Bible—a strong education for any eighteenth-century woman. Wheatley’s first published poem, “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin,” was published in Rhode Island’s Newport Mercury newspaper on December 21, 1767.

Today in History: Library of Congress

On the first day of September in 1939 Germany invaded Poland and ignited World War II.

The Sweeties grandmother was born on the first day of September. Happy Birthday, Grammy.

Broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr would have turned 94 today. He died in July.

One of just 13 men to win baseball’s triple crown (with Baltimore in 1966), Frank Robinson is 75 today. A few of the others: Cobb, Hornsby (twice), Foxx, Gehrig, Williams (twice), Mantle. The last, Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Robinson won the MVP award both with Cincinnati (1961) in the National League and with Baltimore (1966) in the American.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Van Morrison is 65 today.

A paragon of blue-eyed soul, Van Morrison has been following his muse for four decades. His travels have led him down pathways where he’s explored soul, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, rock and roll, Celtic folk, pop balladry, and more, forging a distinctive amalgam that has Morrison’s passionate self-expression at its core. With a minimum of hype or fanfare, working with a craftsman’s discipline and an artist-mystic’s creativity, Morrison has steadily amassed one of the great bodies of recorded work in the 20th century. His discography numbers roughly thirty albums, among them the deeply poetic song cycle Astral Weeks, the warm, pop-soul classic Moondance and such spiritually minded later works as the ambitious double-disc set Hymns to the Silence. At one extreme, Morrison has made raw, angry blues-rock with the British Invasion-era group Them. At the other, he has produced some of the most transcendent, even-toned soul music of the modern era as a solo artist.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Violinist Itzhak Perlman is also 65 today.

Richard Gere is 61. No Oscar nominations for Gere, but his actual middle name is Tiffany.

Five time Oscar nominee for best actor, two time winner, Frederic March was born on the last day of August in 1897. March won for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1931 and The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946. I met him while he was filming Hombre.

Radio and television performer Arthur Godfrey was born on the last day of August in 1903. Godfrey, seemingly forgotten now, was one of the biggest stars of early television.

Arthur Godfrey ranks as one of the important on-air stars of the first decade of American television. Indeed prior to 1959 there was no bigger TV luminary than this freckled faced, ukelele playing, host/pitchman. Through most of the decade of the 1950s Godfrey hosted a daily radio program and appeared in two top-ten prime time television shows, all for CBS. As the new medium was invading American households, there was something about Godfrey’s wide grin, his infectious chuckle, his unruly shock of red hair that made millions tune in not once, but twice a week.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

The esteemed New Yorker editor William Shawn was born on the last day of August in 1907. His actual name is William Chon. Before The New Yorker, Shawn worked briefly at the Las Vegas, New Mexico, Optic.

Four days before he died in 1992, Shawn had lunch with Lillian Ross, and she showed him a book cover blurb she had written and asked if he would check it. She later wrote of that day, “He took out the mechanical pencil he always carried in his inside jacket pocket, and … made his characteristically neat proofreading marks on a sentence that said ‘the book remains as fresh and unique as ever.’ He changed it to read, ‘remains unique and as fresh as ever.’ ‘There are no degrees of uniqueness,’ Mr. Shawn said politely.”

The Writer’s Almanac (2006)

The lyricist Alan Jay Lerner was born on the last day of August in 1918.

He teamed up with a composer named Frederick Loewe and after a few moderately successful productions, they came out with Brigadoon (1947), about a two Americans who discover a mythical Scottish town that disappeared in 1747 and only returns to life for one day each century. One of the Americans falls in love with a girl from the town, and has to decide whether to stay with her and give up the modern world. Brigadoon was a big hit, and it contained Lerner and Loewe’s first hit song, “Almost Like Being in Love.”

But Lerner and Loewe’s biggest success was a musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion: My Fair Lady, which premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1956. In that musical’s most famous song, Professor Henry Higgins teaches Eliza Doolittle to properly pronounce the phrase “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” Lerner spent six weeks working on most of the songs in the musical, but he wrote “The Rain in Spain” in 10 minutes.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Maria Montessori was born in Chiaravalle, Italy, on the last day of August in 1870.

As a doctor, she worked with children with special needs. And through her work with them, she became increasingly interested in education. She believed that children were not blank slates, but that they each had inherent, individual gifts. It was a teacher’s job to help children find these gifts, rather than dictating what a child should know. She emphasized independence, self-directed learning, and learning from peers. Children were encouraged to make decisions. She was one of the first to use child-sized tables and chairs in the classroom.
During World War II, Montessori was exiled from Italy because she was opposed to Mussolini’s fascism and his desire to make her a figurehead for the Italian government. She lived and worked in India for many years, and then in Holland. She died in 1952 at the age of 81.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Princess Diana died 13 years ago today.

Mary Ann Nichols, a prostitute, was found murdered in London’s East End on August 31, 1888. She is generally regarded as the first victim of Jack the Ripper.

Teddy Ballgame is 92 today. Again as he has in recent years, Ted Williams will spend the day hanging out and just chillin’.

Williams played his entire career with the Red Sox. He was American League MVP twice, won the batting title six times and twice won the Triple Crown (led league in batting average, home runs and rbi). (The MVP years and the Triple Crown years were four separate seasons!) Williams career average was .344 and he hit 521 home runs.

Williams was the last hitter to bat over .400, hitting .406 for the season in 1941. “If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400.”

Williams did not play during the 1943-1944-1945 seasons due to military service. And he only played 43 games over the 1952-1953 seasons, also due to military service. Nearly five years between age 24 and 34 missing from his career. Had he been available to play those seasons he might have reached Ruth’s 714 home runs.

It’s also the birthday —

… of Ellen Muriel Deason, known to us as Kitty Wells, and famous for “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Miss Wells is 91 today.

It wasn’t God who made Honky Tonk angels
As you said in the words of your song
Too many times married men think they’re still single
That has caused many a good girl to go wrong

… of Bill Daily. He was the goofy other guy on I Dream of Jeannie, and the neighbor on The Bob Newhart Show. Daily is 83.

… of the other Buffet, Warren. The one who’s not wasting away again in Margaritaville. The billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway is 80.

… of the cartoonist R. Crumb, 67.

… of Peggy Lipton. The original Mod Squad member is 63.

… of Lewis Black. The comedian, and regular on The Daily Show, is 62.

… of basketball hall-of-famer Robert Parish. He’s 57. Parish played in 1,611 NBA games, the record.

… of Cameron Diaz. Princess Fiona is 38.

… of Andy Roddick. He’s 28.

Fred MacMurray was born on this date in 1908. MacMurray required that all his scenes for My Three Sons be filmed at one time. After MacMurray was done, the rest of the cast started filming the shows in the normal sequence. IMDb has MacMurray saying: “The two films I did with Billy Wilder, ‘Double Indemnity’ and the ‘The Apartment’ are the only two parts I did in my entire career that required any acting.” It showed Fred, it showed.

Oscar-nominee Raymond Massey was born on this date in 1896. Massey received the nomination for Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey, related to the Masseys of Massey-Ferguson (tractors and such), was in a lot of westerns and did a lot of TV.

Best actress Oscar-winner Shirley Booth was born on this date in 1898. Booth won the award for Come Back, Little Sheba. Sadly, she’s probably better known for playing the maid Hazel on the sitcom.

The Kingfish, Huey Long, was born on August 30th in 1893. Governor of Louisiana 1928-1932 and U.S. Senator 1932-1935, Long was assassinated at age 42. Historians have argued whether he was dictator, demagogue, messiah or populist. I’d say he was just a little more megalomaniacal than any other politician.

Ty Cobb made his major league debut 105 years ago today.

Senator John McCain is 74-years-old today.

Seven-time Oscar nominee for best actress, Ingrid Bergman was born on this date in 1915. She won the award three times: Gaslight, Anastasia, Murder on the Orient Express. No, she was not nominated for Casablanca. Ms. Bergman’s last role was as Golda Meir in 1982. She died that same year on her birthday, August 29.

Charlie Parker was born on this date in 1920.

Charlie Parker was one of the most influential improvising soloists in jazz, and a central figure in the development of bop in the 1940s. A legendary figure in his own lifetime, he was idolized by those who worked with him, and he inspired a generation of jazz performers and composers.

PBS – JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns

Parker died in 1955.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ruth Jones was born on this date in 1924.

Dinah Washington skirted the boundaries of blues, jazz and popular music, becoming the most popular black female recording artist of the ’50s.

She changed her name from Ruth Jones upon joining jazz vibraphonist Lionel Hampton’s band in 1943. After leaving Hampton in 1946, she began her own recording career, leading to Top 10 R&B hits in “Baby Get Lost” (No. 1, 1949), “Trouble in Mind” (No. 4, 1952), “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” (No. 4 R&B, No. 8 pop, 1959), and “This Bitter Earth” (No. 1 R&B, No. 24 pop, 1960).

In 1960, Washington also sang two No. 1 R&B duets with Brook Benton, “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)” (No. 5 pop) and “A Rockin’ Good Way” (No. 7 pop).

Washington died in 1963 after mixing alcohol and pills.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Sir Richard Attenborough is 87 today. Attenborough won Oscars for best director and best picture for Gandhi. He’s acted in several dozen films, most notably as Roger Bartlett in The Great Escape and Mr. Hammond in the Jurassic Park films.

Two-time Oscar nominee for director, William Friedkin is 75 today. He won for The French Connection; he was nominated for The Exorcist.

Oscar nominee Elliott Gould is 72 today. He was nominated for a supporting role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Gould was married to Barbra Streisand 1963-1971.

Actress Rebecca DeMornay is 51. That was her opposite Tom Cruise in Risky Business and most famously as the twisted nanny in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.

Lea Michel of Glee is 24.

August 29th is the birthday of Michael Jackson. He would have been 52 today.

… of German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born in Frankfurt on this date in 1749. Goethe said, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

… of Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born saint, born in New York City on this date in 1774.

… of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, born near Tula on this date in 1828.

… of ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson, born in Jamestown, New York, on this date in 1908.

… of Nancy Kulp, Miss Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies, was born on August 28th in 1921. She died in 1991.

Eilleen Regina Edwards was born 45 years ago today. We know her better as Shania Twain.

Jack Black is 41.

LeAnn Rimes is 28.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 102 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.

William Least Heat-Moon was born as William Trogdon 71 years ago today. He’s the author, among other works, of Blue Highways, an excellent travel memoir published in 1982. (The roads in blue on highway maps go to the out-of-way places Least Heat-Moon wrote about.)

Daryl Dragon, the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, is 68 today.

Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 67. According to IMDb, “At nine years of age she suffered a nervous breakdown, at ten she started heavy drinking. One year later she began to have affairs, and at the age of twelve she tried to commit suicide.” Weld turned down the role of Lolita and of Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde.

Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee Herman, is 58.

Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 41.

Macaulay Culkin is 30 today.

Sean Connery is 80 today!

Ron, i.e., Rupert Grint, is 22 today.

Baseball hall-of-fame inductee Cal Ripken Jr. is 50.

Steve Guttenberg is 52. According to IMDb, Guttenberg doesn’t have a single award of any kind to his credit.

Marlee Matlin is 45. She has a best actress Oscar for Children of a Lesser God.

Dave Chappelle is 37.

Kenny Baker is 72 today. He was R2D2 in the “Star Wars” movies.

Howard Zinn was born on August 24th in 1922; he died in January.

He’s the author of A People’s History of the United States (1980). It has sold more than a million copies and continues to sell about 100,000 copies each year.

Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including the memoir You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994). Last year, he said: “I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Every American should read A People’s History of the United States.

… of Barbara Eden. “Jeannie” is 76.

… of football hall-of-famer Sonny Jurgensen, 76 today.

… of Linda Thompson. The folk/rock musician, who with then husband Richard made one of the great rock albums — Shoot Out the Lights, is 63 today. She was voted best female singer of 1982 in Rolling Stone.

… of Shelley Long. The star of Cheers and numerous films is 61. Long received six Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Diane Chambers, winning once.

… of Kobe Bryant. He’s 32.

Gene Kelly, the wonderful singer/dancer/actor, was born on this date in 1912. Kelly is most famous for Singin’ in the Rain but received his sole Oscar nomination for best actor for Anchors Aweigh. He died in 1996.