Individuals born on this date with an emphasis on American history and culture, including pop culture.
… of five-time nominee for the Oscar for best actress — and one-time winner — Shirley MacLaine. She’s 74 today. Miss MacLaine won for Terms of Endearment in 1984.
… of Barbra Streisand, born in Brooklyn on this date 66 years ago. Miss Streisand has been nominated for the best actress Oscar twice, winning for Funny Girl in 1969. She also shared the Oscar with Paul Williams for best original song in 1977 for A Star is Born.
Today is the birthday
… of Shirley Temple Black. The actress turned diplomat is 80. Shirley Temple was in approximately 50 films before she turned 18. She received a special juvenile Oscar in 1935.
… of Lee Majors. He’s 69. Soon the $6-million man will be found on eBay for $7.95.
… of Michael Moore, 54.
… of Judy Davis. The two-time Oscar nominee is 53.
… of Valerie Bertinelli. Once Barbara Cooper on One Day at a Time (1975-1984), she’s 48.
… of George Lopez. He’s 47.
… of Melina Kanakaredes, 41.
It was on the date in 1791 that James Buchanan, the former worst president ever of the U.S., was born.
Stephen A. Douglas, the short guy who debated Lincoln during the 1858 election—and won the election, was born on this date in 1813. Douglas died shortly after Lincoln’s inaugural as president in 1861.
And April 23, 1564, is generally accepted as the birth date of William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare used one of the largest vocabularies of any English writer, almost 30,000 words, and he was the first writer to invent or record many of our most common turns of phrase, including “foul play,” “as luck would have it,” “your own flesh and blood,” “too much of a good thing,” “good riddance,” “in one fell swoop,” “cruel to be kind,” “play fast and loose,” “vanish into thin air,” “the game is up,” “truth will out” and “in the twinkling of an eye.”
Shakespeare has always been popular in America, and many colonists kept copies of his complete works along with their Bibles. Pioneers performed his work out West. Many of the mines and canyons across the West are named after Shakespeare or one of his characters. Three mines in Colorado are called Ophelia, Cordelia, and Desdemona.
Jack Nicholson is 71 today.
Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award 12 times, eight times for best actor in a leading role and four times for best actor in a supporting role. He won for best actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976) and As Good As It Gets (1998). He won for best supporting actor for Terms of Endearment (1984). Nicholson has been nominated for an Oscar for films made in the 60s (Easy Rider), 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s (About Schmidt).
The best actress Oscar went to a co-star each time Nicholson won — Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment and Helen Hunt for As Good As It Gets.
According to IMDB, Nicholson “was raised believing his grandmother was his mother and his mother was his older sister. The truth was revealed to him years later when a Time magazine researcher uncovered the truth while preparing a story on the star.”
Glen Campbell is 72 today, as is Estelle Harris, Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld.
Peter Frampton is 58.
And Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona, on this date in 1922.
Irascible, demanding, bullying, and probably a genius, Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a legacy that became universally lauded only after he was no longer around to bug people. As a bassist, he knew few peers, blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of rhythm, capable of elevating the instrument into the front line of a band. But had he been just a string player, few would know his name today. Rather, he was the greatest bass-playing leader/composer jazz has ever known, one who always kept his ears and fingers on the pulse, spirit, spontaneity, and ferocious expressive power of jazz.
Mingus died in 1979.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin was born on this date in 1870.
. . . of Elizabeth R. She’s 82. (R for Regina, i.e., Queen.) Her name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor.
. . . of Elaine May, 76.
. . . of Charles Grodin, 73.
. . . of Iggy Pop, 61.
. . . of Tony Danza, 57.
. . . of Andie MacDowell, 50.
. . . of Tony Romo, 28.
Charlotte Bronte was born on this date in 1816.
John Muir was born on this date in 1838.
Ron Howard’s brother is 49 today.
Ron Howard’s brother is credited with more than 170 films and television programs including roles in many of his brother’s films — Cocoon, Apollo 13 and Cinderella Man come to mind. Many will remember Ron’s brother as the 8-year-old kid in the TV series Gentle Ben. The Howard sibling was also the voice of Roo in the Disney Winnie the Pooh films, and more recently the voice of the balloon man in Curious George.
See NewMexiKen’s very special salute to Ron Howard’s Brother.
. . . of Justice John Paul Stevens, 88 today. He went on the Court in 1975.
. . . of Mr. Sulu. That’s actor George Takei of Star Trek. He’s 71
. . . of Ryan O’Neal, nominated for best actor for Love Story, but never again. He’s 67.
. . . of Coach Steve Spurrier, 63.
. . . of Andrew Tobias. He’s 61.
. . . of six-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner Jessica Lange. Lange won best supporting actress for Tootsie and best actress for Blue Sky. She’s 59.
. . . of Ron Howard’s brother, 49. (See separate entry.)
. . . of Carmen Electra, 36.
Daniel Chester French was born on this date in 1850.
French studied in Boston and New York prior to receiving his first commission for the 1875 statue The Minute Man. Standing near the North Bridge in Concord, in the Minute Man National Historical Park, this work commemorates events at the North Bridge, the site of “the shot heard ’round the world”. An American icon, images derivative of The Minute Man statue appeared on defense bonds, stamps, and posters during World War II.
With the success of The Minute Man came opportunities to study abroad. After a year in Italy, French opened a studio in Washington, D.C. Additional trips to Europe and a friendship with fellow sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens resulted in more ambitious work beginning with the impressive General Lewis Cass executed for the U.S. Capitol in 1888.
By the turn of the century, French was America’s preeminent monumental sculptor. The Angel of Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor, created for Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery; John Harvard, located at Harvard University; and a standing Abraham Lincoln at the west entrance to the Nebraska State Capitol are a few of the important monuments French produced during a long and productive career.
Adolph Hitler was born on this date in 1889.
Harold Lloyd was born on this date in 1893.
“The King of Daredevil Comedy,” Harold Lloyd is best remembered today as the young man dangling desperately from a clock tower in the 1923 classic Safety Last. At the height of his career, Lloyd was one of the most popular and highest-paid stars of his time. While his achievements have been overshadowed by the work of contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he made more films than the two of them combined. With hits like his 1922 film Grandma’s Boy, Lloyd became a strong force in bringing about the advent of the “feature-length” film.
Lionel Hampton was born on this date in 1908.
Hampton was not the first jazz musician to take up vibraphone (Red Norvo had preceded him in the late 1920s), but it was he who gave the instrument an identity in jazz, applying a wide range of attacks and generating remarkable swing on an instrument otherwise known for its bland, disembodied sound. Undoubtedly his best work was done with the Goodman Quartet from 1936-1940, when he revealed a fine ear for small-ensemble improvisation and an unrestrained, ebullient manner as a soloist. The big band format was probably better suited to the display of his flamboyant personality and flair for showmanship, but after a few early successes, especially the riff tunes Flying Home, Down Home Jump, and Hey Bab-Ba-Rebop, the group was too often content to repeat former triumphs for its many admirers. Hampton has at times also appeared as a singer, played drums with enormous vitality, and performed with curious success as a pianist, using only two fingers in the manner of vibraphone mallets.
Luther Vandross was born on this date in 1951. His album Never Too Much is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Definitive 200 (albums that every music lover should own). Vandross died in 2005.
. . . in Massachusetts. (Well, I guess it’s the third Monday now, but whatever.)
Today we celebrate the birthday
. . . of TV’s Wyatt Earp. Hugh O’Brian is 83.
. . . of Elinor Donahue. Donahue has nearly 100 credits listed at IMDB, but foremost she was the oldest daughter on famed 1950s sitcom “Father Knows Best.” Betty “Princess” Anderson is 71.
. . . of Ashley Judd, 40.
. . . of Oscar-nominee (2001) Kate Hudson. More than almost famous at 29.
. . . of Oscar-nominee (2005) Catalina Sardino Moreno. She’s full of grace at 27.
. . . of Maria Sharapova, 21.
Ole Evinrude was born on this date in 1877. Guess what he invented.
Eliot Ness was born on this date in 1903.
Ever since Eliot Ness first published The Untouchables in 1957, the public has fallen in love with the adventures of this authentic American hero. His book was a runaway best seller because it was the exciting true story of a brave and honest lawman pitted against the country’s most successful gangster, Al Capone. The television series that followed in the 1950’s and the Kevin Costner movie in 1987 built fancifully on the same theme.
Vera Jayne Palmer was born on this date in 1933. We know her as Jayne Mansfield.
Grace Kelly became Her Serene Highness Princess Grace on this date in 1956.
By 1956, Grace Kelly was calling it quits after a movie-acting career of only five years—but what a career it was. Her 11 films included the 1952 classic High Noon, the 1956 musical High Society, and the Alfred Hitchcock-directed masterpieces Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. She had won an Oscar for her role in 1954’s The Country Girl—and all this before her twenty-seventh birthday.
The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto started 65 years ago today. The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media has background.
Today is the birthday
. . . of Pollyanna. Hayley Mills is 62.
. . . of two-time Oscar nominee James Woods. He’s 61.
. . . of Rick Moranis, 55.
. . . of Daphne Moon. Jane Leeves of “Frasier” is 47.
. . . of Conan O’Brien. He’s 45.
. . . of America Ferrera; she’s 24.
Lawyer and author Clarence Darrow was born on this date in 1857.
Darrow became famous for defending some of the most unpopular people of his time. In the 1925 Monkey Trial, he defended high school teacher John Scopes for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in a Tennessee school. In “The Crime of the Century,” in 1924, he successfully defended two confessed teenage murderers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, from receiving the death penalty.
. . .He once said: “I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.”
The first game was played at Yankee Stadium on this date in 1923.
War correspondent, and Albuquerquean, Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa, on this date in 1945.
Albert Einstein died at age 76 on this date in 1955.
And it was on this date in 1775 that Paul Revere and others rode to warn their countryman that British troops were mobilizing.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
Continue reading Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Today we celebrate the birthday
. . . of Olivia Hussey. Sixteen when she played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, she’s 57 today.
. . . of Nick Hornby. He’s 51.
The book was called Fever Pitch (1992), and it came out at a time when football fans were generally looked down upon by the British upper class. But the book became something of a phenomenon in Great Britain, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, making it one of the best-selling books about sport ever published in the English language. Part of what made the book so popular was that it captured the way people can rely on a sports team to give their lives drama and meaning. Hornby wrote, “The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.”
. . . of Liz Phair. She’s 41.
. . . of Jennifer Garner. She’s 36.
J. P. Morgan was born on this date in 1837.
[Morgan] began his career in 1857 as an accountant, and worked for several New York banking firms until he became a partner in Drexel, Morgan and Company in 1871, which was reorganized as J.P. Morgan and Company in 1895. Described as a coldly rational man, Morgan began reorganizing railroads in 1885, becoming a board member and gaining control of large amounts of stock of many of the rail companies he helped restructure. In 1896, Morgan embarked on consolidations in the electric, steel (creating U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, in 1901), and agricultural equipment manufacturing industries. By the early 1900s, Morgan was the main force behind the Trusts, controlling virtually all the basic American industries. He then looked to the financial and insurance industries, in which his banking firm also achieved a concentration of control.
Karen Dinesen was born on this date in 1885. We know her as Isak Dinesen.
[S]o she decided to write about her experiences in Africa. Instead of writing an ordinary memoir, she wrote about her time in Africa as though it was a half-remembered dream in her book Out of Africa (1937).
She wrote, “Looking back on a sojourn in the African high-lands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air.”
And, “[I watched] elephants … pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world … [and I once saw a] lion … crossing the grey plain on his way home from the kill, drawing a dark wake in the silvery grass, his face still red up to the ears.”
Nikita Khrushchev was born on this date in in 1894. Khrushchev was Soviet Premier from 1954-1964. The New York Times has posted its lengthy obituary from 1971. One of the more infamous moments at the United Nations took place when Khrushchev visited there in 1960 and reportedly banged his shoe on the desk in a protest. Or maybe he didn’t. Read what NewMexiKen posted about this incident in 2004.
Thornton Wilder was born on this date in 1897.
As a boy, he lived near a university theater where they performed Greek dramas, and his mother let him participate as a member of the chorus. He never forgot the experience, and he decided then that he would try to write for the theater someday. He got a job at the University of Chicago and began to write a series of experimental one-act plays that used a minimum of scenery and props, and often included an all-knowing character called the Stage Manager. Then, in 1938, he produced the play for which he is best known, Our Town, one of the first major Broadway plays to use almost no stage scenery, so that the audience had to imagine the world in which the characters lived.
Our Town is about the New England village of Grover’s Corners, where the characters George Gibbs and Emily Webb grow up, fall in love at the soda fountain, and get married. When Emily dies in childbirth, she gets to relive the day of her 12th birthday and realizes how little she cherished life while she was alive.
William Holden was born on this date in 1918. Holden was nominated three times for the Best Actor Oscar, winning for Stalag 17 in 1954. His other nominations were for Sunset Blvd. and Network. Holden is probably as well known for his portrayal of Hal Carter opposite Kim Novak in Picnic and as the leader of the demolition team intent on destroying Alec Guiness’ Bridge on the River Kwai.
But, most importantly, Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, was born on April 17th. Happy birthday Emily!
Today we celebrate (or at least acknowledge) the birthday
. . . of Pope Benedict XVI, infallible at 81.
. . . of Bobby Vinton, his roses are still red my love at 73.
. . . of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 61.
. . . of Bill Belichick, 56.
. . . of Ellen Barkin, 54.
. . . of Peter Billingsley. Ralphie is 36.
Wilbur Wright was born on this date in 1867. He died of typhoid fever in 1912.
Charlie Chaplin was born on this date in 1889.
In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process — founding his own studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith, and producing, casting, directing, writing, scoring and editing the movies he starred in. In the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly moviegoing was a national habit, Chaplin more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made him the highest-paid actor — possibly the highest paid person — in the world.
Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini on this date in 1924. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.
Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist. For 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s alone, Mancini won five Grammys and two Oscars. Breakfast at Tiffany’s includes the classic “Moon River” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), arguably one of the finest pop songs of the last 50 years. At last count, there were over 1,000 recordings of it. His other notable songs include “Dear Heart,” “Days of Wine and Roses” (one Oscar, two Grammys), and “Charade,” the last two with lyrics by Mercer. He also had a number one record and won a Grammy for Nino Rota’s “Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet.” Among his other notable film scores are The Pink Panther (three Grammys), Hatari! (one Grammy), Victor/Victoria (an Oscar), Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, and 10. His television themes include “Peter Gunn” (two Grammys, recorded by many rock artists), “Mr. Lucky” (two Grammys), “Newhart,” “Remington Steele,” and The Thorn Birds television mini-series.
Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born on this date in 1939. We know her as Dusty Springfield. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 1999, just 13 days after she died of breast cancer.
One of the finest pop-soul vocalists ever, Dusty Springfield was blessed with a powerful, smoky voice that ran the emotional gamut from cool sophistication to simmering passion. Over the course of a long, episodic career, she tackled adult pop, Memphis R&B and Motown-style soul, traditional folk and country, and contemporary dance music. She’s been called “one of the five mighty pop divas of the Sixties”-the others being Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Martha Reeves-and no less an authority than Berry Gordy credits her for helping the Motown sound take root in the U.K. Moreover, Springfield forcefully asserted herself as an artist and personality at a time when women were generally not given much leeway in the music industry. In 1964, she became Britain’s most popular female vocalist, and her popularity proved durable, as she enjoyed hits in four successive decades.
Bessie Smith was born on this date in 1894.
Bessie Smith earned the title of “Empress of the Blues” by virtue of her forceful vocal delivery and command of the genre. Her singing displayed a soulfully phrased, boldly delivered and nearly definitive grasp of the blues. In addition, she was an all-around entertainer who danced, acted and performed comedy routines with her touring company. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African-American entertainer before her.
. . .Some of her better-known sides from the Twenties include “Backwater Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” “St. Louis Blues” (recorded with Louis Armstrong), and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” The Depression dealt her career a blow, but Smith changed with the times by adapting a more up-to-date look and revised repertoire that incorporated Tin Pan Alley tunes like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” On the verge of the Swing Era, Smith died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, in September 1937. She left behind a rich, influential legacy of 160 recordings cut between 1923 and 1933. Some of the great vocal divas who owe a debt to Smith include Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. In Joplin’s own words of tribute, “She showed me the air and taught me how to fill it.”
And this from a review of The Essential Bessie Smith.
. . . Bessie could sing it all, from the lowdown moan of “St. Louis Blues” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” to her torch treatment of the jazz standard “After You’ve Gone” to the downright salaciousness of “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl.” Covering a time span from her first recordings in 1923 to her final session in 1933, this is the perfect entry-level set to go with. Utilizing the latest in remastering technology, these recordings have never sounded quite this clear and full, and the selection — collecting her best-known sides and collaborations with jazz giants like Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Goodman — is first-rate. If you’ve never experienced the genius of Bessie Smith, pick this one up and prepare yourself to be devastated.
There are no lyrics today that surpass “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl” for sexual imagery.
And, there is no more important recording in American musical history than Smith and Armstrong’s “St. Louis Blues.”
In listening to the earliest recordings, keep in mind there were no microphones until 1925. The artists sang or played and the sound was recorded acoustically, i.e., without electrical amplification.
… was born on this date in 1889.
Named after his great-uncle, Missouri’s first senator, Thomas Hart Benton was born on 15 April 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, an Ozark town of 2,000 people. … In 1935 they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where Benton directed the Art Institute until 1941, and where he contiued to live for the rest of his life. Albert Barnes, the Philadelphia collector, purchased some of his paintings, which raised the level of public success for the artist. Benton published his autobiography, An Artist in America, in 1937. He completed several murals in the midwest and on the east coast. Shortly before Harry Truman’s death in December 1972, Benton finished a portrait of the former President. Thomas Hart Benton died on 19 January 1975 in Kansas City, the day he completed a large mural for the Country Music Foundation of Nashville.
Click on the painting to see larger version.
Today we celebrate the birthday
… of Loretta Lynn. The coal miner’s daughter was born in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, 73 years ago.
Loretta Webb was born in a one-room log cabin and was the second of eight children. At thirteen she attended a pie social, bringing a pie she had baked using salt instead of sugar. The highest bidder not only won the pie but also got to meet the girl who had baked the pie. Mooney Lynn had just returned home after having served in the army. A month after they had first met, still three months short of her fourteenth birthday, Loretta and Mooney married.
… of four-time Oscar nominee for best actress Julie Christie. She’s 67. Miss Christie won the Oscar for Darling — and not in February for Away from Her but be sure to see the film.
… of Pete Rose. You can bet that Pete is 67 today.
… of Brad Garrett, 48. Garrett is 6-8½.
… of Greg Maddux, 42.
… of Adrien Brody. The Oscar winner (best actor for The Pianist) is 35.
… of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Buffy is 31.
… of Abigail Breslin. The Oscar-nominated actress is 12.
Three time Oscar-nominated actor Rod Steiger was born on this date in 1925. Steiger won for Best Actor for his portrayal of the sheriff in the movie In the Heat of the Night. He was nominated for best actor for The Pawnbroker and for best supporting actor for On the Waterfront. The Pawnbroker (1964) was one of the first films to deal with the emotional aftermath of the Nazi concentration camps. Steiger died in 2002.
James Cash Penney opened his first retail store, called the Golden Rule Store, in the mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, on this date in 1902. In 1913, the chain incorporated as J.C. Penney Company, Inc.
The first store, as seen in 1904.
RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 PM (Titanic time) on this date in 1912. She was at 41° 46′ north latitude , 50° 14′ west longitude in the Atlantic. The ship went under at 2:20 AM on the 15th.
Today is the birthday
. . . of Ben Nighthorse Campbell, 75.
. . . of Paul Sorvino. The 69-year-old actor has more than 100 credits at IMDB, including a season as Detective Sergeant Philip “Phil” Cerreta on Law & Order and Henry Kissinger in Nixon.
. . . of Wally Cleaver. Tony Dow is 63.
. . . of Al Green, staying together at 62.
With his incomparable voice, full of falsetto swoops and nuanced turns of phrase, Al Green rose to prominence in the Seventies. One of the most gifted purveyors of soul music, Green has sold more than 20 million records. During 1972 and 1973, he placed six consecutive singles in the Top Ten: “Let’s Stay Together,” “Look What You Done for Me,” “I’m Still in Love With You,” “You Ought to Be With Me,” “Call Me” and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” “Let’s Stay Together” topped the pop chart for one week and the R&B charts for nine; it was also revived with great success by Tina Turner in 1984. In terms of popularity and artistry, Green was the top male soul singer in the world, voluntarily ending his reign with a move from secular to gospel music in 1979.
. . . of chess champion Gary Kasparov, 45.
. . . of Davis Love III. He’s 44.
. . . of Rick Schroeder. Just nine when he won a Golden Globe, he’s 38 now.
It’s also the birthday of playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett, born on this date in 1906. Waiting for Godot was published in 1952.
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th in 1743. [It was April 2nd on the calendar when he was born, but it’s that old Julian-Gregorian thing again.]
Eight-three years later, at the end of his remarkable life, he wished to be remembered foremost for those actions that appear as his epitaph:
|
Author of the |
 |
At a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel laureates in 1962, President Kennedy remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Despite serious flaws, Jefferson remains one of the most remarkable Americans.
In addition to being a writer, Jefferson was also a hard-nosed politician, lawyer, naturalist, musician, architect, geographer, inventor, scientist, paleontologist, and philosopher. Jefferson filled his house with scientific gadgets and inventions, collected mastodon bones, and kept detailed notes on the most obscure details of his life, including the daily fluctuation of the barometric pressure. After he missed the start of the solar eclipse in 1811, he designed his own more accurate astronomical clock. He composed all his papers in later life with a device that allowed him to write with two pens at the same time, so that he could keep copies of all the papers he produced.
It seems to NewMexiKen that the country could use a federal holiday during that long spell from Washington’s Birthday to Memorial Day — for shopping and sales and stuff. I propose that April 13th, Jefferson’s birthday, would be ideal.
Click on the image of the document to view Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. The photo of Jefferson’s tomb above taken by NewMexiKen, 2001. Click to enlarge.
Today we celebrate the birthday
. . . of Jane Withers, 82. Withers earned her first fame as an 8-year-old playing the spoiled, doll-ripping, tricycle-riding brat who terrorized sweet, wonderful little Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes.
. . . of Herbie Hancock. He’s 68 today.
. . . of Clarence ‘Lumpy’ Rutherford. Actor Frank Bank of Leave It to Beaver is 66.
. . . of Ed O’Neill. He’s 62. O’Neill was nominated for two Golden Globes for playing shoe salesman Al Bundy on Married … with Children.
. . . of David Letterman. He’s 61, but a part of him seemingly never left the 8th grade.
. . . of Tom Clancy. He’s 61.
He was an insurance salesman, and he was doing well for himself, but he’d always wanted to be a writer. He had spent all his spare time reading magazines about military technology, such as Combat Fleets of the World and A Guide to the Soviet Navy, and one day he began to wonder what would happen if a Soviet submarine tried to defect to the United States. That became the basis for his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984).
Instead of focusing on the interactions between his characters, Clancy focused more on the technology. He described the soviet submarine in intricate detail, the way it moved and maneuvered, and all its weaponry and hardware. Since he didn’t think the novel would appeal to a mass audience, he published it with a small military publishing house called the Naval Institute Press. But the book got passed around among officers and generals, and eventually made its way to Ronald Reagan, who said he loved it. That endorsement from the president helped turn The Hunt for Red October into a huge best-seller.
. . . of Scott Turow. He’s 59. He wanted to be a writer but went to law school so he’d have a day job. His first novel was Presumed Innocent, published in 1987.
. . . of David Cassidy. Once a teen heart throb, he’s now 58.
. . . of Andy Garcia. He’s 52. Garcia was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in The Godfather: Part III.
. . . of Vince Gill. He’s 51.
. . . of Claire Danes, 29.
The photographer Imogen Cunningham was born on this date in 1883.
Ethel Kennedy is 80 today.
Joel Grey is 76.
Louise Lasser — remember Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (No? Neither do I.) Anyway, Louise is 69 today.
Columnist and author Ellen Goodman is 67.
And Joss Stone is 21, old enough to buy shoes.
It was on this date in 1945 that American troops entered Buchenwald, second only to Auschwitz in its horrors.
Many of the soldiers who entered Buchenwald on this day had been fighting in World War II since D-Day. They had participated some of the bloodiest battles in history. But nothing they’d seen prepared them for what they saw at Buchenwald. Several of the soldiers carried Kodak cameras, and so they took photographs of the surviving prisoners and the dead, so that people would believe what they had seen. Their photographs showed human beings so emaciated that they could barely walk, and victims’ bodies were stacked around the camp like piles of wood.
Sergeant Fred Friendly, who would go on to work as a CBS producer, wrote to his mother, “I want you to never forget or let our disbelieving friends forget, that your flesh and blood saw this.”
One of the reporters who covered the liberation of Buchenwald was Edward R. Murrow. He was so disturbed by what he saw that he couldn’t write about it for days, and let a subordinate break the story.
One of the children liberated at the camp that day was a teenager named Elie Wiesel, who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He had been forced to march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald a few weeks earlier, and his father had recently died in the camp. He saw American jeeps rolling into the camps, and he later wrote, “I will never forget the American soldiers and the horror that could be read in their faces. I will especially remember one black sergeant, a muscled giant, who wept tears of impotent rage and shame. … We tried to lift him onto our shoulders to show our gratitude, but we didn’t have the strength. We were too weak to even applaud him.”
Today we celebrate the birthday
… of Harry Morgan. Colonel Sherman Potter is 93. IMDb lists 159 credits for Morgan. If you’d like to see him as a relatively young actor, check out the 1943 classic “The Ox-Bow Incident.” Morgan was Henry Fonda’s sidekick. Great, great film.
You may not know the name Verna Felton, but you know the voice. She was the character actress heard in many Disney animations — a matriarchical elephant in Dumbo, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. She also appeared with Harry Morgan in an early fifties sitcom December Bride — and its 1960 spinoff Pete and Gladys. She died in 1966, but Morgan kept Felton’s photo on Sherman Potter’s desk on the M*A*S*H set to portray Mrs. Potter. Says a lot about both of them, doesn’t it?
… of Max von Sydow, 79.
… of Omar Sharif. Dr. Zhivago is 76. Sharif was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia.
… of John Madden. He’s 72.
… of Don Meredith. He’s 70. “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”
… of Paul Theroux (rhymes with through). He’s 67.
It’s the birthday of novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux, born in Medford, Massachusetts (1941). After college he decided to join the Peace Corps in 1963. He later said, “I had thought of responsibilities I did not want—marriage seemed too permanent, grad school too hard, and the army too brutal.” He said the Peace Corps was a kind of “Howard Johnson’s on the main drag to maturity.”
The Peace Corps sent him to live in East Africa. He was expelled from Malawi after he became friends with a group that planned to assassinate the president of the country. He continued traveling around Africa, teaching English, and started submitting pieces to magazines back in the United States. While living in Africa, he became friends with the writer V.S. Naipaul, who became his mentor and who encouraged him to keep traveling.
He had published several novels when he decided to go on a four-month trip through Asia by train. He wrote every day on the journey, and he filled four thick notebooks with material that eventually became his first best-seller, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975).
… of Steven Seagal. He’s 57. No Oscar nominations for Seagal, but he has been nominated for several Razzies and won once.
… of Anne Lamott. She’s 54.
It’s the birthday of novelist and essayist Anne Lamott, born in San Francisco, California (1954). In the late 1970s, her father was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she began to write short pieces about the effect of the disease on him and other members of her family, and these pieces became chapters of her first novel, Hard Laughter (1980).
She wrote three more novels over the next decade, but she didn’t have any big literary successes. Then, in her mid-thirties, she accidentally got pregnant and her boyfriend left her when she decided to keep the baby. For her first year as a single mother, she found herself on the edge of financial and emotional disaster. She was too busy to write fiction, so she just kept a daily journal of experiences as a parent, and that became her memoir Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (1993). It was her first best-seller.
… of Mandy Moore, 24.
The Pulitizer Prize winning author David Halberstam should have been 74 today.
One of America’s most successful authors, David Halberstam began his career as a journalist in the 1950s, first as a reporter for The Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi and later for the Nashville Tennessean. In 1960 he joined The New York Times and shortly thereafter was assigned to the paper’s bureau in Saigon. Halberstam was among a small group of reporters there who began to question the official optimism about the growing war in Vietnam. Halberstam’s work from Vietnam so rankled official Washington that President Kennedy once asked the publisher of The New York Times to transfer Halberstam to another bureau. In 1964, at age 30, Halberstam earned a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Vietnam. His best-selling book, The Best and The Brightest, chronicles America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
And Joseph Pulitzer himself was born in Budapest, Hungary, on this date in 1847.
He came to this country, moved to New York City and bought The New York World newspaper. He said, “There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic — dedicated to the cause of the people rather than that of purse potentates — devoted more to the news of the New than the Old World; that will expose all fraud and sham; fight all public evils and abuses; that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity.” With his profits, he endowed the Columbia School of Journalism as well as the annual Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, literature, drama, music.
Today we celebrate the birthdays
… of Hugh Hefner. Hef is 82.
… of Michael Learned. Momma Walton is 69.
… of Jerry Lee Lewis, Gordon Cooper, Doc Holliday, Sam Houston and, lest we forget, New Orleans Det. Remy McSwain. Dennis Quaid is 54.
… of Cynthia Nixon. The Sex in the City star is 42. Nixon played the maid hired by Salieri to spy on Mozart in the film Amadeus.
… of Rudy Huxtable. Keshia Knight Pulliam is 29.
Paul Robeson was was born on this date in 1898.
Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. He was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Today, more than one hundred years after his birth, Robeson is just beginning to receive the credit he is due.
Read more from the profile of Robeson at the PBS site for American Masters.
Today we celebrate the birthdays
. . . of Betty Ford, 90.
. . . of journalist Seymour Hersh, 71.
It was Seymour Hersh who broke the story that American soldiers had massacred an entire village in Vietnam, killing all the men, women, and children. He followed up on it and broke the story of what is now known as the My Lai massacre and went on to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the subject, My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath (1970).
. . . of John Havlicek, 68.
Known for clutch performances in big games, Havlicek posted impressive numbers during his illustrious 16-year career. In 1,270 regular-season games he scored 26,395 points and averaged 20.8 points to rank as the Celtics’ all-time leading scorer and the sixth-highest scorer in NBA history. He also grabbed 8,007 rebounds, recorded 6,114 assists, and played on eight Boston championship teams. He appeared in 13 consecutive NBA All-Star Games, earned 11 selections to the All-NBA First or Second Team, and was named to the NBA All-Defensive First or Second Team eight times.
. . . of Gary Carter, 54.
A rugged receiver and enthusiastic on-field general, Gary Carter excelled at one of baseball’s most demanding positions, as both as offensive and defensive force. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner, Carter belted 324 home runs in his 19-season major league career. “Kid” showed a knack for the big-time, twice earning All-Star Game MVP awards in his 11 selections. His clutch 10th-inning single in Game Six of the 1986 World Series sparked a dramatic Mets’ comeback victory, ultimately leading to a World Series title.
. . . of Barbara Kingsolver, 53.
She majored in biology at DePauw University in Indiana, and then got a master’s degree in evolutionary biology. She was working on a Ph.D. thesis on the social lives of termites when she decided to abandon a career in science and try to become a writer. She took a job as a technical writer, which forced her to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day and do nothing but write. She later said, “I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.”
Her first novel was The Bean Trees (1986), about a woman from rural Kentucky who leaves home so she won’t get stuck in a boring, dead-end life. She’s perhaps best known for her novel The Poisonwood Bible (1998), about the wife and four daughters of an evangelical Baptist minister who go as missionaries to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
. . . of the Princess bride. Robin Wright Penn is 42.
Peggy Lennon is 67 and Julian Lennon is 45. They are not related.
Patricia Arquette (Allison Dubois) is 40 and Emma Caulfield (Susan Keats and Anya) is 35.
Gladys Marie Smith was born on this date in 1892. We know her as Mary Pickford. Miss Pickford won the Oscar for best actress for Coquette. The first big female movie star, Pickford was an industry leader as well, helping found United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Jim “Catfish” Hunter was born on this date in 1946.
The bigger the game, the better he pitched. Jim “Catfish” Hunter, with his pinpoint control, epitomized smart pitching at its finest. He pitched a perfect game in 1968, won 21 or more games five times in a row, and claimed the American League Cy Young Award in 1974. Arm trouble ended his career at age 33, but he still won 224 games and five World Series rings. The likable pitching ace died in 1999 at age 53 – a victim of ALS, the same disease that cut short the life of Lou Gehrig.
… was born on this date in 1896. One of the great lyricists, Harburg would be loved by us all if only for —
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow
Why oh why can’t I?
The Harburg Foundation provides this biographical sketch:
Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg (1896-1981) was born of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents of modest means on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He attended the City University of New York. In high school (Townsand Harris) he met his lifelong friend, Ira Gershwin and discovered that they shared a mutual love for the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Yip and Ira were frequent contributors of poetry and light verse to their high school and college papers.
The years after college found Yip slipping further away from writing and eventually into the world of business. After the electric appliance business Yip had helped develop over seven long years was decimated by the stock market crash of 1929, Yip turned his attention back full time to the art of writing lyrics. His old friend Ira Gershwin became a mentor, co-writer and promoter of Yip’s.
Mr. Harburg’s Broadway achievements included Bloomer Girl, Finnian’s Rainbow, Flahooley and Jamaica.
His most noted work in film musicals was in The Wizard of OZ for which he wrote lyrics, was the final editor and contributed much to the script (including the scene at the end where the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are rewarded for their efforts by the Wizard). He also wrote lyrics for the Warner Brothers movie, Gay Purr-ee.
Yip was “blacklisted” during the 50’s by film, radio and television for his liberal views.
In all, Yip wrote lyrics to 537 songs including; “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”, “April In Paris”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “Hurry Sundown”, “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, “How Are Things In Glocca Mora” and of course his most famous… “Over the Rainbow”.
Taking a lesson from Saint Francis Xavier, born on this date in 1506 (see here), NewMexiKen has decided to raise the level of the insults I hurl, for example, at other drivers. From now on, instead of “Hey, a**hole,” or “m*****f*****,” or some other Deadwood appropriate language, I am simply going to yell:
“It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death you may be ordered out of paradise.”
Today is the birthday
. . . of Ravi Shankar. Norah Jones’ father is 88.
. . . of Hendley “The Scrounger,” Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford. That’s James Garner, 80 today.
. . . of Trapper. Wayne Rogers is 75.
. . . of Governor Moonbeam. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is 70.
. . . of Francis Ford Coppola. The Oscar-winning writer and director is 69. Coppola has been nominated 14 times overall, winning five, three for writing (Patton, Godfather and Godfather II). He won the best director and best picture Oscars for Godfather II.
. . . of David Frost. The journalist, television celebrity is 69.
. . . of Jackie Chan, 54.
. . . of Russell Crowe. The 3-time best actor Oscar nominee is 44. He won for Gladiator.
. . . of Tiki and Ronde. The Barber brothers are 66.
Eleanora Fagan was born on this date in 1915. We know her as Billie Holiday.
Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.
Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married three years after she was born.
The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
. . .At Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer. She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down. The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly assured him that she could. She sang “Trav’lin’ All Alone” and then “Body and Soul” and got a job–$2 a night for six nights a week working from midnight until about 3 o’clock the next afternoon.
Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was the leader on occasional recording sessions.
She made her first recording, “Your Mother’s Son-in-Law” in November, 1933, singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr. Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.
Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members of Count Basie’s band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She was particularly close to Mr. Basie’s tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young.
It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz circles–Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was identified by jazz bands, “Pres.” She was the vocalist with the Basie band for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months with Artie Shaw’s band.
The New York Times (1959)
Billie Holiday and Francis Ford Coppola. It ought to be a national holiday.
In case you’ve noticed the discrepancy in various news reports, Charlton Heston’s birth year seems to be either 1923 or 1924. (In either case he was born on October 4.) Why no enterprising obituary writer saw fit to check some vital records is beyond me.