Category: Birthdays

B.B. King is 83 today. Many more B.B. Many more.

King doesn’t play chords or slide; instead, he bends individual strings till the notes seem to cry. His style reflects his upbringing in the Mississippi Delta and coming of age in Memphis. Seminal early influences included such bluesmen as T-Bone Walker (whose “Stormy Monday,” King has said, is “what really started me to play the blues”), Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson and Bukka White. A cousin of King’s, White schooled the fledgling guitarist in the idiom when he moved to Memphis. King also admired jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart. Horns have played a big part in King’s music, and he’s successfully combined jazz and blues in a big-band context.

“I’ve always felt that there’s nothing wrong with listening to and trying to learn more,” King has said. “You just can’t stay in the same groove all the time.” This willingness to explore and grow explains King’s popularity across five decades in a wide variety of venues, from funky juke joints to posh Las Vegas lounges.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Elsewhere, Betty Joan Perske is 84. As Lauren Bacall she was nominated for best actress in a supporting role for her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Bacall was 20 when she married Humphrey Bogart (he was 45) and just 32 when he died. She was married to Jason Robards from 1961-1969.

Columbo, Peter Falk, is 81.

George Chakiris is 76. You know, Bernardo.

Elgin Baylor is 74.

Had Elgin Baylor been born 25 years later, his acrobatic moves would have been captured on video, his name emblazoned on sneakers, and his face plastered on cereal boxes. But he played before the days of widespread television exposure, so among the only records of his prowess that remain are the words of those who saw one of the greatest ever to play.

NBA.com

Robin Yount is 53.

Robin Yount was a productive hitter who excelled in the field at two of baseball’s most challenging positions – shortstop and center field. Playing his entire 20-year career with the Milwaukee Brewers, he collected more hits in the 1980s than any other player and finished with an impressive career total of 3,142. An every day major leaguer at age 18, Yount earned MVP awards at two positions and his 1982 MVP campaign carried the Brewers to the World Series.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Mickey Rourke is 52.

Jennifer Tilly is 50. Tilly received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for Bullets Over Broadway. Better yet she was the voice of Celia, Mike’s love interest, in Monsters, Inc.

Marc Anthony is 40.

Amy Poehler is 37.

… of Jackie Cooper; he’s 86. Cooper’s first appearance in film was in 1929; his last 60 years later. He played Perry White in the Superman films but his real fame was as a child actor, most notably Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934). He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for Skippy in 1931. This is the role where the director got him to cry on camera by telling Jackie (falsely) that his dog had just been run over by a car.

… of baseball hall-of-famer Gaylord Perry, 70.

Gaylord Perry achieved two of pitching’s most magical milestones with 314 wins and 3,534 strikeouts. Distracting and frustrating hitters through an array of rituals on the mound, he was a 20-game winner five times and posted a 3.10 lifetime ERA. With the Giants in 1968, Perry no-hit the Cardinals and starter Bob Gibson. An outstanding competitor, he won Cy Young awards in 1972 with Cleveland and with San Diego in ‘78, becoming the first pitcher to win the award in both leagues.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Jessye Norman, 63 today. From a biographical essay by the Kennedy Center:

Jessye Norman is one of the most celebrated artists of our century. She is also among the most distinguished in a long line of American sopranos who refused to believe in limits, a shining member of an artistic pantheon that has included Rosa Ponselle, Maria Callas, Leontyne Price and now this daughter of Augusta, Georgia. “Pigeonholing,” said Norman, “is only interesting to pigeons.” Norman’s dreams are limitless, and she has turned many of them into realities in a dazzling career that has been one of the most satisfying musical spectacles of our time.

… of Tommy Lee Jones. He’s 62. Jones has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor twice, winning for The Fugitive, but not for JFK. And he was nominated for best actor for In the Valley of Elah, a fine, fine performance. NewMexiKen like Jones also in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Jones and Harvard roommate Al Gore were the inspiration for Oliver Barrett IV in Erich Segal’s best-seller Love Story.

… of Oliver Stone, also 62. Stone has been nominated for ten Oscars and won three — he won for writing for Midnight Express and for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

Football hall-of-famers Merlin Olsen, 68, and Dan Marino, 47, share this birthday.

County music immortal Roy Acuff was born on this date in 1903.

Roy Claxton Acuff emerged as a star during the early 1940s. He helped intensify the star system at the Grand Ole Opry and remained its leading personality until his death. In so doing, he formed the bridge between country’s rural stringband era and the modern era of star singers backed by fully amplified bands. In addition, he co-founded Acuff-Rose Publications with songwriter Fred Rose, thus laying an important cornerstone of the Nashville music industry. For these and other accomplishments he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1962 as its first living member.

Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum

Humorist Robert Benchley was born on this date in 1889. In 2005 The Writer’s Almanac said:

He started writing humor as a kid in school. Assigned to write an essay about how to do something practical, he wrote one called “How to Embalm a Corpse.” When he was assigned to write about the dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights from the point of view of the United States and Canada, he instead chose to write from the point of view of the fish.

He’s the grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.

Agatha Christie was born on this date in 1890. Two years ago The Writer’s Almanac has this (and more):

During World War I, she was working as a Red Cross nurse, and she started reading detective novels because, she said, “I found they were excellent to take one’s mind off one’s worries.” She grew frustrated with how easy it was to guess the murderer in most mysteries, and she decided to try to write her own. That book was The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) about a series of murders at a Red Cross hospital.

Christie’s first few books were moderately successful, and then her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd came out in 1926. That same year, Christie fled her own home after a fight with her husband, and she went missing for 10 days. There was a nationwide search, and the press covered the disappearance as though it were a mystery novel come to life, inventing scenarios and speculating on the possible murder suspects, until finally Christie turned up in a hotel, suffering from amnesia. During the period of her disappearance, the reprints of her earlier books sold out of stock and two newspapers began serializing her stories. She became a household name and a best-selling author for the rest of her life.

William Howard Taft, both president and later chief justice of the United States, was born on September 15, 1857:

In 1900, President William McKinely appointed Taft chair of a commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines which had been ceded to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War. From 1901 to 1904 Taft served successfully as the first civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt named Taft secretary of war.

After serving nearly two full terms, popular Teddy Roosevelt refused to run in 1908. Instead, he promoted Taft as the next Republican president. With Roosevelt’s help, Taft handily defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with dissent from more liberal members of the Republican party, many of whom continued to follow the lead of former President Roosevelt.

Progressive Republicans openly challenged Taft in the Congressional elections of 1910 and in the Republican presidential primaries of 1912. When Taft won the Republican nomination, the Progressives organized a rival party and selected Theodore Roosevelt to run against Taft in the general election. Roosevelt’s Bull Moose candidacy split the Republican vote and helped elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

From 1921 until 1930, Taft served his country as chief justice of the Supreme Court. In an effort to make the Court work more efficiently, he advocated passage of the 1925 Judges Act enabling the Supreme Court to give precedence to cases of national importance.

Library of Congress

Today is the birthday

… of Milton S. Hershey, born on this date in 1857. Hershey, who only completed the fourth grade, developed a formula for milk chocolate that made what had been a luxury product into the first nationally marketed candy.

… of Sherwood Anderson, born on this date in 1876 in Camden, Ohio.

[Anderson] is best known for his short stories, “brooding Midwest tales” which reveal “their author’s sympathetic insight into the thwarted lives of ordinary people.” Between World War I and World War II, Anderson helped to break down formulaic approaches to writing, influencing a subsequent generation of writers, most notably Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Anderson, who lived in New Orleans for a brief time, befriended Faulkner there in 1924 and encouraged him to write about his home county in Mississippi. (Library of Congress)

… of Bill Monroe, born on this date in 1911. The Father of Bluegrass Music was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970. In 1993, Monroe was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, an honor that placed him in the company of Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Paul McCartney. Monroe died in 1996.

Monroe is also an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Musical pioneer Bill Monroe is known as “the father of bluegrass music.” While Monroe would humbly say, “I’m a farmer with a mandolin and a high tenor voice,” he and His Blue Grass Boys essentially created a new musical genre out of the regional stirrings that also led to the birth of such related genres as Western Swing and honky-tonk. From his founding of the original bluegrass band in the Thirties, he refined his craft during six decades of performing. In so doing, he brought a new level of musical sophistication to what had previously been dismissed as “rural music.” Both as ensemble players and as soloists, Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys upped the ante in their chosen genre much the way Duke Ellington’s and Miles Davis’s bands did in jazz. Moreover, the tight, rhythmic drive of Monroe’s string bands helped clear a path for rock and roll in the Fifties. That connection became clear when a reworked song of Monroe’s, “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” became part of rock and roll history as the B side of Elvis Presley’s first single for Sun Records in 1954. Carl Perkins claimed that the first words Presley spoke to him were, “Do you like Bill Monroe?”

… of Mel Torme, born on this date in 1925. The “Velvet Fog” was a wonderful jazz singer, but his greatest legacy is writing “The Christmas Song” — “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”. Torme died in 1999.

And it’s the anniversary of the inspiration for our most famous song:

As the evening of September 13, 1814, approached, Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer who had come to negotiate the release of an American friend, was detained in Baltimore harbor on board a British vessel. Throughout the night and into the early hours of the next morning, Key watched as the British bombed nearby Fort McHenry with military rockets. As dawn broke, he was amazed to find the Stars and Stripes, tattered but intact, still flying above Fort McHenry.
…

Key’s experience during the bombardment of Fort McHenry inspired him to pen the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He adapted his lyrics to the tune of a popular drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and the song soon became the de facto national anthem of the United States of America, though Congress did not officially recognize it as such until 1931.

Library of Congress

 
 
The Smithsonian Institution, which has the original “star-spangled banner,” has details about the flag.
 
 
 

George Jones is 77.

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

Maria Muldaur is 65. Muldaur, famous for “Midnight at the Oasis,” has an album of Shirley Temple songs (2004).

Joe Pantoliano is 57.

Ruben Studdard is 30.

Yao Ming is 28.

Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson is 27 today.

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.

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.

Musician Leo Kottke is 63.

One-time Oscar nominee Amy Madigan is 58.

Sportscaster Lesley Visser is 55. 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 47.

Kristy McNichol is 46.

Harry Connick Jr. is 41. He grew up in New Orleans where his father was D.A.

Ludacris is 31.

William Sydney Porter was born on this date in 1852. We know him as O. Henry. According to The Writer’s Almanac last year, “He wrote his most famous story, ‘The Gift of the Magi,’ in three hours, in the middle of the night, with his editor sleeping on his couch.” NewMexiKen had posted that story in its entirety. Another particular favorite is The Ransom of Red Chief.

Today is the birthday

… of Arnold Palmer. Arnie is 79 today.

… of Jose Feliciano. He’s 63. 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 60.

… of Amy Irving. She’s 55. Ms. Irving was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in Yentl.

… of future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Randy Johnson. He’s 45.

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.

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.

Cliff Robertson is 85. Robertson won the best acting Oscar in 1969 for Charly. Most recently he has played Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.

Joe Theismann is 59. 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 56.

Hugh Grant is 48. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?

Adam Sandler turns 42 today.

Best supporting actress nominee for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is 28.

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

Elizabeth was born on September 7th in 1533. 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. The “P” in HP.

Senator Daniel Inouye was born on September 7th in 1924. He’s 84 today.

Tenor saxophonist Theodore Rollins — Sonny Rollins — was born on September 7th in 1930. He is 78 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 59.

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 57 today.

W. Earl Brown was born on September 7th in 1963. He’s Dan Dority of Deadwood and 45 today.

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.

Here’s some more:

Miss Addams moved into Hull House in September, 1889, and it was her home thereafter. It was then between a saloon and an undertaking shop, and there was an annex to a factory in its rear. Thousands of the foreign born–Miss Addams always held welcoming arms to the strangers–including Poles, Jews, Russians, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Irish and Bohemians were welcomed there. Negroes were also cordially received.

Persons later to be famous lived there in those early days. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Swope, who were married there, Mackenzie King, later Premier of Canada, Francis Hackett, and Professor John Dewey, dean of American philosophers, and his family.

Hull House grew to be known as one of the largest and best-known of the nation’s settlements. It commenced with the ordinary activities of children’s clubs and free kindergartens and later it sponsored courses in languages, literature, music, painting, history, mathematics, elocution, dancing, wood-carving, pottery, metal work, bookbindery, dressmaking, lacework, cooking and basketwork. A labor museum was also established at Hull House.

Dozens of clubs were organized to aid working women. A lunch room was opened, as was a nursery for the children of employed women. There was also a gymnasium, a natatorium, a penny savings bank, a lodging house, as well as a circulating library and an employment bureau. Miss Addams personally directed all these activities, which were models for hundreds of others throughout the world.

Of course, she was just a community organizer.

Jane Curtin is 61.

Jeff Foxworthy is 50. 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.”
• “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 44. Ms. Perez was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar in 1994 for Fearless.

Macy Gray is 41.

Author Alice Sebold is 45.

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.

In 1968, [Pirsig] decided to take a trip by motorcycle from Minneapolis to California with his twelve-year-old son. He thought he’d write a travel essay about the journey, but the travel essay turned into a book about using Eastern philosophy to come to terms with his life. He called the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974). It was rejected by 121 publishers before one publisher finally took a chance on it. It went on to become the best-selling non-fiction book of the 1970s, selling more than 4 million copies.

Robert Pirsig said: “I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.”

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

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 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.

Bob Newhart is 79. John Stewart of The Kingston Trio is 69. Raquel Welch is 68. Michael Keaton is 57.

Hall of fame basketball coach John Thompson is 67 today. Funny how things stick in your memory. I can remember a photo of Thompson in a basketball magazine when he was a player at Providence College. It was one of those silly posed photos — they had him with a basketball in each hand, held like a pair of softballs.

Terry Bradshaw is 60, Mark Harmon 57 and Jimmy Connors 56 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 44.

And Salma Hayek is 42. 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.

Broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr is 92 today.

One of just 13 men to win baseball’s triple crown (with Baltimore in 1966), Frank Robinson is 73 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 with Cincinnati in the National League and with Baltimore in the American.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Van Morrison is 63 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 63 today. Perlman did an album with André Previn, Joplin: The Easy Winner and Other Ragtime Music, that I just love, especially The Entertainer.

Richard Gere is 59. 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.

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.

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)

Princess Diana died 11 years ago today.

Ted Williams is 90 today. Again as he has in recent years, Williams is planning to spend the day hanging out and just chillin’.

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.”

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 81 today.

… of the other Buffet, Warren. The one who’s not wasting away again in Margaritaville. The billionaire is 78.

In February 2008, he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world, worth about $62 billion. Despite his massive wealth, he lives relatively frugally, still residing in the home he bought in 1958 for $31,500, driving his own car, and allotting himself an annual salary from his investment company of about $100,000.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

… of Peggy Lipton. The Mod Squad member is 61.

… of Lewis Black. The comedian, and regular on The Daily Show, is 60.

… of basketball hall-of-famer Robert Parish. He’s 55. Parish played in 1,611 NBA games, the record.

… of Cameron Diaz. Princess Fiona is 36.

… of Andy Roddick. He’s 26.

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.

Senator John McCain is 72-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 85 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 73 today. He won for The French Connection; he was nominated for The Exorcist.

Oscar nominee Elliott Gould is 70 today. He was nominated for a supporting role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Today is the birthday of Michael Jackson. He’s 50. Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Actress Rebecca DeMornay is 49. That was her opposite Tom Cruise in Risky Business and most famously as the twisted nanny in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 100 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.

William Least Heat-Moon was born as William Trogdon 69 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 66 today.

Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 65. 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 56.

Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 39.

… was born on this date in 1913 — that’s Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo. The tribute to Kelly at The International Museum of Cartoon Art Hall of Fame, now The National Cartoon Museum, reads:

Like a number of other successful newspaper cartoonists of his day, Walt Kelly learned his craft as an animator at the Walt Disney Studios between 1935 and 1941, and the Disney style was always evident in his work. After a brief stint as a comic book artist and an editorial cartoonist, Kelly launched his masterpiece, Pogo, in 1949. The strip featured a colorful cast of furry and not-so-furry creatures who inhabited the Okefenokee Swamp, including Pogo, Albert, Howland Owl, P.T. Bridgeport, Beauregard and Churchy la Femme. Out of the mouths of these innocent animals came everything from profound musings on the human condition to downright nonsense. The superb artistry, satirical humor and playful language of Pogo enchanted millions of readers and even now, years after his death in 1973, Kelly still has a loyal following.

According to the web site I Go Pogo:

Walt Kelly first used the quote “We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us” on a poster for Earth Day in 1970. … In 1971, he did a two panel version with Pogo and Porky in a trash filled swamp.

Sean Connery is 78 today.

Van Johnson is 92 and “Let’s Make A Deal” Monty Hall is 87.

Regis is 77.

Tom Skerritt, “Viper” in Top Gun, is 75.

Baseball hall-of-famer Rollie Fingers is 62.

Rollie Fingers’ 17-year career epitomized the emergence of the modern-day relief ace. After watching him post inconsistent results as a starter, the A’s moved Fingers to the bullpen. He excelled quickly and frequently in his new role. Relying on a sharp slider, Fingers went on to notch 341 career saves. Known for his handlebar mustache, Fingers became a familiar site during the post-season, appearing in 16 World Series games. He won both the American League MVP and Cy Young Award with the Brewers in 1981.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Academy Award nominee for supporting actress in Fatal Attraction Anne Archer is 61 today.

Gene Simmons is 59.

The more talented Elvis, Elvis Costello, is 54 today.

Born Declan Patrick McManus, Costello had the audacity to adopt “Elvis” as a stage name (at manager Riviera’s suggestion) and the talent to live up to such a seemingly scandalous appropriation. Greil Marcus profiled him in 1982: “He combined the brains of Randy Newman and the implacability of Bob Dylan, the everyman pathos of Buddy Holly and the uniqueness of John Lennon.”

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Director Tim Burton is 50.

Hannah Montana’s dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, is 47.

Rachel Ray is 40.

Claudia Schiffer is 38.

Leonard Bernstein, “one of the most prodigally talented and successful musicians in American history,” was born on August 25th in 1918. The quotation is from his obituary in The New York Times.

… of Barbara Eden. “Jeannie” is 74.

… of Linda Thompson. The folk/rock musician, who with then husband Richard made one of the great rock albums — Shoot Out the Lights, is 61 today. She was voted best female singer of 1982 in Rolling Stone.

… of Shelley Long. The star of Cheers and numerous films is 59. Long received six Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Diane Chambers, winning once.

… of Kobe Bryant. He’s 30.

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.