Category: Birthdays

Lily Tomlin is 68 today.

Dr. Phil is 57.

Gloria Estefan is 50.

Dee Dee Myers — remember her? — she’s just 46.

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 September 1st in 1908. She died in 2004.

The great labor leader Walter Reuther was born on September 1st 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 September 1st 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

It was on September 1st in 1939 that Germany invaded Poland and ignited World War II.

The Sweeties® grandmother was born on September 1st. Happy Birthday Grammy.

Broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr is 91 today.

One of just 13 men to win baseball’s triple crown (with Baltimore in 1966), Frank Robinson is 72 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 62 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 62 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 58. 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. NewMexiKen met Mr. March when he was in Tucson in 1966 for the making of Hombre, one of his last roles.

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)

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

Princess Diana died ten years ago today.

Ted Williams is 89 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 Bill Daily. He was the goofy other guy on I Dream of Jeannie, and the neighbor on The Bob Newhart Show. Daily is 80 today.

… of the other Buffet, Warren. The one who’s not wasting away again in Margaritaville. The billionaire is 77.

… of Peggy Lipton. The Mod Squad member is 60.

… of Lewis Black. The comedian, and regular on The Daily Show, is 59.

… of basketball hall-of-famer Robert Parish. He’s 54. Parish played in 1,611 NBA games, the record.

… of Cameron Diaz. Princess Fiona is 35.

… of Andy Roddick. He’s 25.

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.

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 84 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 72 today. He won for The French Connection; he was nominated for The Exorcist.

Senator John McCain is 71 today.

Oscar nominee Elliott Gould is 69 today. He was nominated for a supporting role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Today is the birthday of Michael Jackson. He’s 49. Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Actress Rebecca DeMornay is 48. That was her opposite Tom Cruise in Risky Business and most famously as the twisted nanny in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.

… 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.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 99 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.

Daryl Dragon, the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, is 65 today.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey, who’s thinking about running again, is 64. They never get over it.

Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 64. 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 55.

Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 38.

Macaulay Culkin is 27 today.

Sean Connery is 77 today.

Van Johnson is 91, Mel Ferrer 90 and “Let’s Make A Deal” Monty Hall 86.

Regis is 76.

Tom Skerritt, “Viper” in Top Gun, is 74.

Baseball hall-of-famer Rollie Fingers is 61.

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 60 today.

The more talented Elvis, Elvis Costello, is 53 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 49.

Hannah Montana’s dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, is 46.

Rachel Ray is 39.

Claudia Schiffer is 37.

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.

Ron, i.e., Rupert Grint, is 19 today.

New baseball hall-of-fame inductee Cal Ripken Jr. is 47.

Steve Guttenberg is 49. According to IMDb, Guttenberg doesn’t have a single award of any kind to his credit.

Marlee Matlin is 42. She has a best actress Oscar for Children of a Lesser God.

Dave Chappelle is 34.

… of Barbara Eden. “Jeannie” is 73.

… of Linda Thompson. The folk/rock musician, who with then husband Richard made one of the great rock albums — Shoot Out the Lights, is 60 today. She was voted best female singer of 1982 in Rolling Stone.

… of Shelley Long. The star of Cheers and numerous films is 58. Long received six Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Diane Chambers, winning once.

… of Kobe Bryant. He’s 29.

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.

It was on this date in 1864, in Mobile Bay, that Union Rear Admiral David G. Farragut said “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Kenny Rogers is 69.

Patty McCormack is 62. The actress, known now as Patricia McCormack, was nominated for the supporting actress Oscar as an 11-year-old for her performance in The Bad Seed.

Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City is 51.

Hayden Panettiere of Heroes is 18.

William “Count” Basie was born on this date in 1904.

Count Basie was a leading figure of the swing era in jazz and, alongside Duke Ellington, an outstanding representative of big band style.

Quotation from the PBS website for Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns. The page has a nice biography of Basie with some audio clips, including Basie’s 1937 recording of “One O’Clock Jump,” one of NPR’s 100 “most important American musical works of the 20th century.”

Wilt Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia 71 years ago today. Usually called “The Stilt” because it rhymed with Wilt, Chamberlain actually preferred the nickname “The Big Dipper.”

• Scored 800 points in first 16 high school games.
• Unanimous All-American at Kansas 1957, 1958, averaging nearly 30 points per game.
• Four-time NBA MVP.
• Scored 31,419 points (30.1 ppg) in 1,045 pro games, including 100 in one game against the Knicks.
• All-time scoring leader when he retired, since surpassed.

Chamberlain died in 1999.

Hawaii entered the Union as the 50th state on this date in 1959. The eight major islands in the chain are Ni’ihau, Kaua’i, O’ahu, Moloka’i, Lāna’i, Kaho’olawe, Maui and Hawai’i.

… of Issac Hayes. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 65.

Isaac Hayes is a multi-faceted talent: songwriter, producer, sideman, solo artist, film scorer, actor, rapper and deejay. He has been hugely influential on the rap movement as both a spoken-word pioneer and larger-than-life persona who’s influenced everyone from Barry White to Puff Daddy. Hayes is best known for his soundtrack to Shaft, one of the first and best “blaxploitation” films, and for the song “Theme from ‘Shaft,’” a Top Ten hit. But his varied resume boasts everything from backing up Otis Redding and writing for Sam and Dave and others at Stax Records in the Sixties to serving as the voice of Chef on South Park in the Nineties.

… of Connie Chung. The newscaster is 61.

… of Robert Plant. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (as part of Led Zeppelin) is 59.

… of Al Roker. The weatherman who’s not half of what he used to be is 53.

… of Joan Allen. The three-time Oscar nominee — Nixon, The Crucible, The Contender — is 51.

Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, was born on this date in 1833. Until Jenna or Barbara Bush gets the job, Harrison remains the only grandchild of a president to also be president.

Maureen O’Hara is 87 today. Once voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Miss O’Hara is proabably best known now as Natalie Wood’s unbelieving mother in the classic Miracle on 34th Street; or perhaps as Esmeralda to Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Robert De Niro is 64 today. De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Raging Bull in 1981. He also won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as the young Vito Corleone in Godfather II. De Niro’s nominations were for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.

Sean Penn is 47 today. Penn has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar four times, winning for Mystic River. Penn’s other nominations were for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen is 48 today. The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award.

Football coach Jon Gruden is 44.

After seeing Mae’s jewelry the coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” That’s Screen Legend Mae West in Night After Night. Ms. West was born on this date in 1893.

… is the birthday of Fess Parker, the actor who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. He’s 83.

Actor Robert Culp is 77 today. He was Bill Cosby’s sidekick (or Cosby was his) in the first TV series to feature an African-American, I Spy.

Frank Gifford is 77 today. Kathie Lee Gifford is 54 today.

Oscar-winner James Cameron is 53. Cameron won, of course, for Titanic — writer, director, best picture.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone is 49.

Supporting actor Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton is 47.

Steve Carrell is 44.

Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks is 35. Originally Emily Erwin (Robison is her married name), she and her sister Martie (now Maguire) founded the group with two other classmates. The other two left and the group added Natalie Maines as the lead singer in 1995.

Football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was born on this date in 1862. Stagg, Skull and Bones at Yale, was on the first All-America team ever (1889). He coached most famously at the University of Chicago, 1892-1932. Stagg developed the man-in-motion and the lateral pass — and developed basketball as a five man game. He is in both the college football and basketball halls of fame.

Elvis Presley died 30 years ago today, he was 42. Babe Ruth died 59 years ago today, he was 53. Robert Johnson died 69 years ago today, he was 27.

… is Napoleon’s birthday. He was born August 15, 1769 (and died in 1821, at age 51). As an adult, Napoleon was just over 5-feet, 6-inches tall (1.686 m), about average for his countrymen at the time.

Four time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress (one win), Ethel Barrymore was born on this date in 1879.

Pulitzer-winning author Edna Ferber was born 120 years ago today. She’s known best for So Big (Pulitzer prize in 1924), Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant and Ice Palace.

TV chef Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California, on this date in 1912.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 69.

Pro Football Hall of Fame member Gene Upshaw is 62 today. Upshaw played for the Raiders, 1967-1981. (Ahh, the glory years.) Upshaw has had a second career as Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association since 1983.

Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth, is 57.

Grace, that is, actress Debra Messing, is 39.

Ben Affleck is 35.

The Wizard of Oz premiered 68 years ago tonight.

If you know anything about mythology you probably learned about it first from Edith Hamilton, born on this date in 1867. Hamilton’s book Mythology, written after she had retired as a school head mistress, was published in 1942.

Mark Knopfler is 58 today. Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.

Pete Sampras is 36.

Cantinflas, the great Mexican comedian, acrobat and musician — and bullfighter — was born on this date in 1911. His actual name was Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes. Cantinflas was Passepartout in Michael Todd’s 1956 Around the World in Eighty Days. In English-speaking countries, David Niven was billed as the star. Elsewhere Cantinflas took top billing — he was the highest paid actor in the world at the time. He saved the movie from the stiff Niven if you ask me.

The movie producer Cecil B. DeMille was born on August 12th in 1881. Known for his extravaganzas (e.g., The Ten Commandments), DeMille won his only Oscar for The Greatest Show on Earth.

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 87.

She had always wanted to be a writer, but she kept putting it off. It was only as she approached her 40th birthday that she began to feel that she had to write something or give up on it altogether. It took her three years to finish her first novel, Cover Her Face (1962), and it was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to. She’s one of the few professional writers in modern history never to have received a rejection slip.

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 81.

… of Martin Sheen, 67. Sheen won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown.

… of Martha Stewart, 66.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 56.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 30.

… of Evangeline Lilly, 28 today. Maybe now she can be found.

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Eight-time Oscar nominee for best actor, Peter O’Toole is 75 today.

Director-writer-producer Wes Craven is 68.

Eddie Munster, aka actor Butch Patrick, is 54.

Emmy-winner, for Angels in America, and Weeds star Mary Louise Parker is 43 today. Parker played Amy Gardner on West Wing.

Actress Myrna Loy was born on this date in 1905. IMDB has her listed for an incredible 138 roles, beginning with silent films when she was the femme fatale, but more famously as the witty, urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies. NewMexiKen liked her in The Best Years of Our Lives, a film everyone should see. It won seven Academy Awards in 1946.

Author James Baldwin was born on this date in 1924.

After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1955) and GIOVANNI’S ROOM (1956). Dealing with taboo themes in both books (homosexuality and interracial relationships, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and psychologically penetrating literature. (American Masters | PBS)

James Butler Hickok was killed while playing poker in Deadwood 131 years ago today. American Heritage has An Interview with Jeff Morey, an expert on Wild Bill and the frontier.