Category: Birthdays

Ron Howard is no doubt celebrating his brother’s 54th birthday today.

Ron Howard’s brother has more than 200 film and television credits including roles in many of his brother’s films — Cocoon, Apollo 13, Cinderella Man and Frost/Nixon come to mind. Many will remember Ron Howard’s brother also as the 8-year-old kid in the TV series Gentle Ben. Howard’s younger 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.

. . . is the birthday

… of Russ Tamblyn. Riff, “a Jet to his dying day,” is 78.

… of Sandy Koufax. The most dominant pitcher in the game in the early 1960s — the man who threw four no-hitters including a perfect game — is 77.

… of Noel Paul Stookey. Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary is 75.

… of James Burrows. The director of “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “Will and Grace” is 72.

… of Fred Ward. The actor (Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff and Earl Bassett in the greatest movie ever, Tremors) is 70.

… of Monkees Michael Nesmith (70) and Davy Jones, who died February 29th; he would have been 67 today.

… of Patti Smith. Punk rock’s poet laureate is 64.

… of Matt Lauer, 55 today.

… of Tracey Ullman. She’s 53.

… of Eldrick Woods. Tiger is 37.

… of LeBron James. He’s 28 today.

The Genius Among Geniuses, Alfred Einstein, was born on December 30, 1880.

And a genius of another kind, Bo Diddley was born on this date in 1928. (He died in 2008.)

Music historian Robert Palmer has described Bo Diddley as “one of the most original and fertile rhythmic intelligences of our time.” He will forever be known as the creator of the “Bo Diddley beat,” one of the cornerstone rhythms of rock and roll. He employed it in his namesake song, “Bo Diddley,” as well as other primal rockers like “Mona.” This distinctive African-based rhythm pattern (which goes bomp bomp bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up from Diddley by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock and roll through the decades.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Claudia Alta Taylor was born 100 years ago today.

In 1934 Lady Bird met Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a Congressional secretary visiting Austin on official business; he promptly asked her for a date, which she accepted. He courted her from Washington with letters, telegrams, and telephone calls. Seven weeks later he was back in Texas; he proposed to her and she accepted. In her own words: “Sometimes Lyndon simply takes your breath away.” They were married in November 1934.

The years that followed were devoted to Lyndon’s political career, with “Bird” as partner, confidante, and helpmate. She helped keep his Congressional office open during World War II when he volunteered for naval service; and in 1955, when he had a severe heart attack, she helped his staff keep things running smoothly until he could return to his post as Majority Leader of the Senate. He once remarked that voters “would happily have elected her over me.”

After repeated miscarriages, she gave birth to Lynda Bird (now Mrs. Charles S. Robb) in 1944; Luci Baines (Mrs. Ian Turpin) was born three years later.

The White House

I worked at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in the mid-1970s where I met and occasionally chatted with Mrs. Johnson. Lady Bird was a warm, impressive and attractive woman. She died in 2007.

Today is also the birthday

… of Hector Elizondo. Better-known for Chicago Hope, NewMexiKen remembers this fine character actor best as the gracious hotel manager in Pretty Woman and also as the father in the delightful Tortilla Soup. He’s 76 today.

… of Steve Carlton. Lefty is 68.

Steve Carlton was an extremely focused competitor with complete dedication to excellence. He thrived on the mound by physically and mentally challenging himself off the field. His out-pitch, a hard, biting slider complemented a great fastball. He won 329 games – second only to Warren Spahn among lefties – and his 4,136 strikeouts are exceeded only by Nolan Ryan. Lefty once notched 19 strikeouts in a game, compiled six 20-win seasons, and was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Matty Alou, 74, and Steve Garvey, 64.

… of Diane Sawyer. She’s 67.

… of Ralph Fiennes, Lord Voldemort. The actor, twice nominated for the best actor Oscar, is 50.

And it’s the birthday of twins Robin (d.2012) and Maurice (d.2003) Gibbs, who with brother Barry formed the BeeGees.

Twas a week before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Except these birthday folks

Today is the birthday

… of actor Roger Smith. He’s 80. Smith has been married to Ann-Margret 45 years. Health issues limited his acting career, which was most notable for 77 Sunset Strip.

… of Keith Richards. The Rolling Stone is 69.

… of Steven Spielberg. The director is 66.

… of Ray Liotta. The actor, a good fella, is 57.

… of Brad Pitt, 49.

… of Christina Aguilera. She’s 32.

Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born on this date in 1916. She was known as Betty Grable and, according to Wikipedia, “Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as: thigh (18.5″) calf (12″), and ankle (7.5″). Grable’s legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.”

James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was born December 18, 1897.

“Fletcher Henderson … led the most important of the pioneering big bands, which helped to set the pattern for most later big jazz bands playing arranged music.” (PBS – JAZZ – Fletcher Henderson)

The electrical engineer and inventor Edwin H. Armstrong was born on December 18, 1890. Armstrong was instrumental in the development of early radio and the inventor of FM.

Ty Cobb was born on this date in 1886.

Ty Cobb may have been baseball’s greatest player, if not the game’s fiercest competitor. His batting accomplishments are legendary — a lifetime average of .367, 297 triples, 4,191 hits, 12 batting titles (including nine in a row), 23 straight seasons in which he hit over .300, three .400 seasons (topped by a .420 mark in 1911) and 2,245 runs. Intimidating the opposition, The Georgia Peach stole 892 bases during a 24-year career, primarily with the Detroit Tigers.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Paul Klee was born on this date in 1879. That’s his “Red Balloon” (1922).

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on this date in 1878. We know him as Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин). He was responsible for the execution of an estimated 700,000 people 1937-1938.

Born on this date were

… Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

… Jane Austen (1775-1817). Best known for her novels about young women yearning to get married, she was never married.

… George Santayana (1863-1952). “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

… Noel Coward (1899-1973).

… Margaret Mead (1901-1978). “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

… Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008). Clarke’s laws:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The first point-contact transistor was built 65 years ago today (1947).

The Boston Tea Party was 239 years ago tonight (1773).

Melvil Dewey was born on December 10th in 1851. You know — Dewey, as in Dewey decimal system.

Dr. Dewey had a passion for efficiency, for time and labor saving methods. He was born at Adams Centre, Jefferson County, N.Y. on Dec. 10, 1851. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1874 and received a Master’s degree there in 1877. While in college he was honorary assistant in the library, desiring to learn its technique. He decided that much could be done in education by building up the library systems and set about to apply his ideas. The college library drifted into his management, and at the end of his junior year he was asked by the trustees to become acting librarian.

It was here that he developed the system of classifying and cataloguing books by decimal numbers, a system now known by his name and used in practically all libraries in this country.

New York Times obituary, 1931

Emily Dickinson was born on this date in 1830.

Emily Dickinson selected her own society, and it was rarely that of other people. She preferred the solitude of her white-washed poet’s room, or the birds, bees, and flowers of her garden to the visitations of family and friends. But for three occasions in her life she never left her native Amherst, MA; for the last twenty of her fifty-six years, she rarely left her house. And yet her reclusive existence in no way restricted her abundant life of the imagination. Her letters and poems, all except seven published posthumously, revealed her to be an inspired visionary and true original of American literature.

PBS: I Hear America Singing

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

Emily Dickinson Museum

Dick Bavetta is 73 today. He is a referee in the NBA. Still.

Tommy Kirk is 71 today. Kirk was in Disney films Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson and The Absent-Minded Professor. Kirk was fired by Walt Disney personally in 1963 when it was learned he was gay.

Susan Dey of “The Partridge Family” is 60.

Four-time Oscar nominee Kenneth Branagh is 52. Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards — for adapted screenplay, best short film, best actor and best director.

Summer Phoenix (born Summer Joy Bottom) is 33 today. Her siblings are River (died 1993), Rain, Joaquin and Liberty. Her husband is Casey Affleck.

“Hoss” Cartwright was born 84 years ago today. That’s the actor Dan Blocker. Blocker was a west Texas boy, a teacher and coach at Carlsbad, New Mexico’s Eddy School among other places, before getting into acting. Hoss’s given name on Bonanza was Eric. Blocker, who weighed around 300 pounds, died in 1972 at age 43.

Philip Hart was born 100 years ago today. Hart was United States Senator from Michigan 1959-1976. The third of the three Senate office buildings is named for him — the vote to do so was 99-0. He died shortly after.

Chet Huntley was born 101 years ago today. After proving a popular success at the 1956 political conventions, the team of Huntley (from New York) and David Brinkley (from Washington) anchored the NBC evening news program. Huntley left the show in 1970. He died in 1974. “Good night, Chet” — “Good night, David — “and good night for NBC News.”

And happy round-year birthday to my brother-in-law Ken (KenB on these pages). That’s a book he wrote below. Best wishes, Bro.

Saturnino Orestes Armas “Minnie” Miñoso Arrieta is 87 today. Miñoso played for the Indians, the White Sox, the Cardinals and Senators from 1949-1964. He also played for the White Sox in 1976 (3 games) and in 1980 (2 games). At 54 in 1980, Miñoso was the second oldest ever to come to bat. More significantly, he was a 9-time All-Star and had a career BA of .298.

Vin Scully is 85 today. Scully started broadcasting Dodger games in Brooklyn in 1950. Seems unlikely now, but Scully called NFL games for CBS 1975-1982.

John Mayall is 79. He should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for his influence alone — Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie among those once in the Bluesbreakers. That’s Mayall in 2004 in the photo and with Clapton for his 70th birthday the year before. Crank it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwGL5LDb4u8

Diane Ladd is 77. Ladd has appeared in more than 100 films and television programs and has been nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar three times including her portrayal of Flo in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and in a film with her daughter Laura Dern, Rambling Rose.

Chuck Mangione is 72.

The outstanding Tigers catcher (1961-1976) Bill Freehan is 71.

Garry Shandling is 63.

Joel Coen, the Joel of the Coen Brothers, is 58. (Ethan was 55 in September.) Films by the brothers include O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller’s Crossing, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn’t There, No Country for Old Men, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and True Grit.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is 55 today.

Don Cheadle is 48. Cheadle was, of course, nominated for the best actor Oscar for his performance in Hotel Rwanda.

Mariano Rivera is 43 today.

Gregory Byrne, the athletic director at the University of Arizona since May 1, 2010, is 41. Not bad for an ASU grad.

C.S. Lewis was born on this date in 1898. He’s the author of the seven-volume children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia.

Louisa May Alcott was born on this date in 1832.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

“We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” said Beth contentedly from her corner.

The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words.

The Library of Congress’s Today in History has a lot about Alcott.

The first Army-Navy football game was 122 years ago today (1890). Navy won 24-0.

Bill Nye the Science Guy is 57 today.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is 55.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia is 54.

Jimi Hendrix might have been 70 today.

Jimi Hendrix expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar into areas no musician had ever ventured before. Many would claim him to be the greatest guitarist ever to pick up the instrument. At the very least his creative drive, technical ability and painterly application of such effects as wah-wah and distortion forever transformed the sound of rock and roll. Hendrix helped usher in the age of psychedelia with his 1967 debut, Are You Experienced?, and the impact of his brief but meteoric career on popular music continues to be felt.

More than any other musician, Jimi Hendrix realized the fullest range of sound that could be obtained from an amplified instrument. Many musical currents came together in his playing. Free jazz, Delta blues, acid rock, hardcore funk, and the songwriting of Bob Dylan and the Beatles all figured as influences. Yet the songs and sounds generated by Hendrix were original, otherworldly and virtually indescribable. In essence, Hendrix channeled the music of the cosmos, anchoring it to the earthy beat of rock and roll.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Buffalo Bob Smith was born 95 years ago today. (He died in 1998.)

The new Howdy, who premiered in March 1948 was an all-American boy with red hair, forty-eight freckles (one for each state in the Union), and a permanent smile. Howdy’s face symbolized the youthful energy of the new medium and appeared on the NBC color test pattern beginning in 1954.

Smith treated the marionettes as if they were real, and as a result, so did the children of America. Among the many unusual marionettes on the show was Phineas T. Bluster, Doodyville’s entrepreneurial mayor. Howdy’s grumpy nemesis, Bluster had eyebrows that shot straight up when he was surprised. Bluster’s naive, high-school-aged accomplice, was Dilly Dally, who wiggled his ears when he was frustrated. Flub-a-dub was a whimsical character who was a combination of eight animals. In Howdy and Me, Smith notes, “Howdy, Mr. Bluster, Dilly, and the Flub-a-Dub gave the impression that they could cut their strings, saunter off the stage, and do as they pleased.”

Although the live characters, particularly the native Americans Chief Thunderthud and Princess Summerfall Winterspring, were by modern standards stereotypical and often clownish, each had a rich heritage interwoven into the stories.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

I had an appendectomy when I was six. I checked into the hospital Thursday evening for the Friday surgery and so missed that Friday’s episode of “Howdy Doody.” I’m still wondering whether Salami Joe found the jewel in the banana. (As we all knew, Salami Joe only ate bananas on Fridays.)

Stan the Man is 92. He batted .331 lifetime. It ought to be a national holiday.

After 22 years as a Cardinal, Stan Musial ranked at or near the top of baseball’s all-time lists in almost every batting category. The dead-armed Class C pitcher was transformed into a slugging outfielder who topped the .300 mark 17 times and won seven National League batting titles with his famed corkscrew stance and ringing line drives. A three-time MVP, he played in 24 All-Star games. He was nicknamed The Man by Dodgers fans for the havoc he wrought at Ebbets Field and was but one home run shy of capturing the National League Triple Crown in 1948.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Today is also the birthday

… of Joseph Campanella. The actor is 88.

… of “That Girl” Marlo Thomas, now 75.

… of Malcolm John “Mac” Rebennack, Jr. That’s Dr. John, in the right place, wrong time. He’s 72 today.

… of actress Juliet Mills. Hayley’s older sister and John’s older daughter is 71. Juliet Mills first appeared in a movie in 1942, when she played an infant.

… basketball hall-of-famer Earl Monroe. The Pearl is 68.

… of writer-director-actor Harold Ramis. He’s 68. Ramis co-wrote the screenplay and directed “Groundhog Day,” enough to make me a fan. He was the doctor in the film.

… of Goldie Hawn. Kate Hudson’s mom is 67.

… of the other Judy Garland daughter, Lorna Luft. She’s 60.

… of the not so desperate Nicollette Sheridan. She’s 49.

… of Björk Guðmundsdóttir. Björk is 47.

… of football hall-of-famer Troy Aikman. He’s 46.

… of future baseball hall-of-famer Ken Griffey Jr. Junior is 43.

… of Michael Strahan, 41.

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was born on this date in 1904. According to Wikipedia:

Lester Young, who was called “Pres”, in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, said “As far as I’m concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? As far as myself, I think I’m the second one.” Miles Davis once said: “When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads.”

François-Marie Arouet was born in Paris on this date in 1694. We know him as Voltaire.

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

On the 13th of November

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

… in 1940, the Disney film Fantasia premiered.

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

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

Joe Mantegna is 65 today, Chris Noth is 58, Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg is 57 (birth name Caryn Elaine Johnson), Vinny Testaverde is 49, and Jimmy Kimmel is 45.

One of America’s oldest recent high school graduates, Taylor McKessie is 32 today. That’s actress Monique Coleman of High School Musical.

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

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

Oyez

And today is the 162nd anniversary of the birth of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Today is the birthday

… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Art Garfunkel, 71. Bridge Over Troubled Water

… of Sam Shepard. He’s 69. An inductee as a playwright into the Theatre Hall of Fame, Shepard was also nominated for the best actor Oscar for playing Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.

… of Peter Noone (Herman of Herman’s Hermits). He’s 65. No, Peter isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter

… of Bill Walton, 60. He’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

… of football hall-of-famer Kellen Winslow. He’s 55.

… of Bryan Adams, 53.

… of Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton, 52.

… of Tatum O’Neal, 49. Miss O’Neal won the best supporting actress Oscar at age 10 for Paper Moon.

Gram Parsons was born Cecil Ingram Connors 66 years ago today. He died in 1973. He was a member of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Love Hurts

Vivien Leigh (who died at age 53) was born on this date in 1913. Miss Leigh was voted best actress twice — for Katie Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (opposite Clark Gable) and for Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (opposite Marlon Brando).

Leonard Franklin Slye was born in Cincinnati on this date in 1911. As Roy Rogers he’s an inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the only person to be elected twice — as the King of the Cowboys and as a founder of the Sons of the Pioneers (“Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Cool Water“). Rogers died in 1998.

The journalist Ida Tarbell was born on this date in 1857.

By the early 1900s, John D. Rockefeller Sr. had finished building his oil empire. For over 30 years, he had applied his uncanny shrewdness, thorough intelligence, and patient vision to the creation of an industrial organization without parallel in the world. The new century found him facing his most formidable rival ever–not another businessman, but a 45-year-old woman determined to prove that Standard Oil had never played fair. The result, Ida Tarbell’s magazine series “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” would not only change the history of journalism, but also the fate of Rockefeller’s empire, shaken by the powerful pen of its most implacable observer.

. . .

“The History of the Standard Oil Company” would be hailed as a landmark in the history of investigative journalism, as well as the most comprehensive study of the building of Rockefeller’s oil empire. In 1999 it was listed number five among the top 100 works of twentieth-century American journalism. …

American Experience

Eugene V. Debs was born on November 5th in 1855.

Labor leader, radical, Socialist, presidential candidate, Eugene Victor Debs was a homegrown American original. He formed the American Railway Union, led the Pullman strike of the 1890’s in which he was jailed, and emerged a dedicated Socialist. An idealistic, impassioned fighter for economic and social justice, he was brilliant, eloquent and eminently human. As a “radical” he fought for women’s suffrage, workmen’s compensation, pensions and social security — all commonplace today. Five times the Socialist candidate for president, his last campaign was run from federal prison where he garnered almost a million votes.

Labor Hall of Fame

Today is the birthday

… of baseball hall-of-famer Gaylord Perry, 74.

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

But, more importantly —

Gaylord Perry, one of the premier pitchers of his generation, won 314 games and struck out 3524 batters, but his place in baseball history rests mainly with his notorious use of the spitball, or greaseball, which defied batters, humiliated umpires, and infuriated opposing managers for two decades. But make no mistake: he was also a brilliant craftsman with several excellent pitches in his repertoire, a hurler whose mastery of the spitter provided the batter yet another thing to think about as the pitch sailed toward the plate. After the game, he sheepishly denied any wrongdoing, slyly grinning like a poker player who knows he’s one step ahead of everyone else.

The Baseball Biography Project

From the same source:

During a playoff game in 1971, a television reporter briefly sat down with the Perry family during a game Gaylord was pitching. After a few polite questions, Allison, Perry’s five-year-old daughter was asked, “Does your daddy throw a grease ball?” Not missing a beat, she responded, “It’s a hard slider.”

… of Jessye Norman, 67 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 66. 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 liked 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 66. Stone has been nominated for 11 Oscars and won three — he won for writing for Midnight Express and for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

Coach Pete Carroll is 61. Dan Marino is 51. Jason Terry is 35.

Jackie Cooper was born on September 15, 1922. He died last year. 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.

The biographer Fawn Brodie was born on this date in 1915. She was one of the first woman professors of history at UCLA, best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974) and No Man Knows My History (1945), a biography of Joseph Smith. Professor Brodie dealt in psychobiography; she was among the first to make the case for a Jefferson-Sally Hemmings relationship.

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

Agatha Christie was born on this date in 1890. Five years ago The Writer’s Almanac had 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.

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.

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

James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15th in 1789.

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

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

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

Hal Wallis was born on this date in 1898. A producer, Wallis was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar 15 times, winning for Casablanca in 1942. Wallis died in 1986.

The itinerant hall-of-fame basketball coach, Larry Brown, is 72 today.

Davenie Johanna Heatherton was born 68 years ago today. She was called Joey and had a lot of appearances when she was 16-25 on various TV shoes with older male singers — Perry Como, Dean Martin, Andy Williams — Bob Hope’s Christmas shows for the troops. It was mostly about her looks.

Sam Neill was born in Northern Ireland 65 years ago today. Neill has appeared in numerous films, most famously The Hunt for Red October, Jurassic Park and as the ass-of-a-husband in The Piano.

The wonderful actress Melissa Leo is 52 today. See was nominated for best actress for Frozen River (a superb performance) and won for best supporting actress for The Fighter. She was in the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street and is currently in Treme as Antoinette “Toni” Bernette.

Wendy Thomas, for whom Wendy’s is named, is 51 today.

In a different universe Amy Winehouse would be 29 today.

Clayton Moore was born Jack Carlton Moore on this date in 1914. He was, of course, The Lone Ranger for 169 episodes of the 221 of the TV series 1949-1957, training his voice to sound like the radio version. (Moore was not on the radio series; it ran for 2,956 episodes, 1933-1954.) Moore had to sue to maintain his rights to appear as the Lone Ranger after the show ended. He died in 1999.

Actor Jack Hawkins was born 102 years ago today. He was the Roman admiral Quintus Arrius in Ben Hur, “We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.”

Handel completed the Messiah 271 years ago today.

In the British American Colonies it was September 2nd 260 years ago yesterday and September 14th 260 years ago today. (The British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752.)

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

And it was on September 14th in 1814 that Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The Compromise of 1850 was put in place 162 years ago today with the admission of California as the 31st state and the creation of New Mexico and Utah territories.

Joe Theismann is 63. 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 60. She was Danny Thomas’s step-daughter, Brigitta in Sound of Music, and Penny Robinson in Lost in Space.

Hugh Grant is 52. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?

Adam Sandler turns 46 today.

Michelle Williams is 32.

Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.

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

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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

Try a Little Tenderness

Tolstoy was born 184 years ago today.

Elvis Presley’s first famous TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was 56 years ago tonight.

From Peter Guralnick’s excellent Last Train to Memphis:

On September 9 he was scheduled to appear on the premier Ed Sullivan Show of the season. Sullivan, however, was recuperating from an August automobile accident and, as a result, was not going to be able to host the program, which Elvis would perform from the CBS studio in Los Angeles. Elvis sent Sullivan a get-well card and a picture autographed to “Mr. Ed Sullivan” and was thrilled to learn that the show would be guest-hosted by Charles Laughton, star of Mutiny an the Bounty. Steve Allen, who had presented him in his last television appearance, was not even going to challenge Sullivan on the night in question: NBC was simply going to show a movie.

He opened with “Don’t Be Cruel,” strolling out alone from the darkened wings onto a stage spotlighted with silhouettes of guitars and a bass fiddle. He was wearing a loud plaid jacket and an open-necked shirt, but his performance was relatively subdued, as every shoulder shrug, every clearing of his throat and probing of his mouth with his tongue, evoked screams and uncontrolled paroxysms of emotion. Then he announced he was going to sing a brand-new song, “it’s completely different from anything we’ve ever done. This is the title of our brand-new Twentieth Century Fox movie and also my newest RCA Victor escape – er, release.” There was an apologetic shrug in response to the audience’s laughter, and then, after an altogether sincere tribute to the studio, the director, and all the members of the cast, and “with the help of the very wonderful Jordanaires,” he sang “Love Me Tender.” It is a curious moment. Just after beginning the song he takes the guitar off and hands it to an unseen stagehand, and there are those awkward moments when he doesn’t seem to know quite what to do without his prop and shrugs his shoulders or twitchily adjusts his lapels, but the moans which greet the song — of surprise? of shock? of delight? most likely all three — clearly gratify him, and at the end of the song he bows and gestures graciously to the Jordanaires.

When he comes back for the second sequence, the band is shown, with Jordanaire Gordon Stoker at the piano and the other Jordanaires in plaid jackets at least as loud (but nowhere near as cool) as his own. They rock out on Little Richard’s “Ready Teddy,” but when Elvis goes into his dance the camera pulls away and, as reviews in the following days will note, “censors” his movements. It doesn’t matter. The girls scream just when he stands still, and when he does two verses of “Hound Dog” to end the performance, the West Coast studio audience goes crazy, though the New York Journal-American‘s Jack O’Brian, after first taking note of Presley’s “ridiculously tasteless jacket and hairdo (hairdon’t)” and granting that “Elvis added to his gamut (A to B) by crossing his eyes,” pointed out that the New York audience “laughed and hooted.” “Well, what did someone say?” remarked host Charles Laughton, with good humor, at the conclusion of the performance. “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?”

The show got a 43.7 Trendex rating (it reached 82.6 percent of the television audience), and in the Colonel’s view, which he shared gleefully with Steve Sholes, really boosted Presley’s stock with an adult audience for the first time.

It was about this time that Elvis began dying his hair from its natural sandy-dark blond to jet black — “Clairol Black Velvet.”

John Milton Cage was born 100 years ago today. 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 first experiments involved altering standard instruments, such as putting plates and screws between a piano’s strings before playing it. As his alterations of traditional instruments became more drastic, he realized that what he needed were entirely new instruments. Pieces such as “Imaginary Landscape No 4″(1951) used twelve radios played at once and depended entirely on the chance broadcasts at the time of the performance for its actual sound. In “Water Music” (1952), he used shells and water to create another piece that was motivated by the desire to reproduce the operations that form the world of sound we find around us each day.

While his interest in chance procedures and found sound continued throughout the sixties, Cage began to focus his attention on the technologies of recording and amplification. One of his better known pieces was “Cartridge Music” (1960), during which he amplified small household objects at a live performance. Taking the notions of chance composition even further, he often consulted the “I Ching,” or Book of Changes, to decide how he would cut up a tape of a recording and put it back together.

American Masters

His 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.

Cage died in 1992.

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

Napoleon Lajoie was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, on September 5, 1874. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 (second year).

Second baseman Napoleon Larry Lajoie combined grace in the field with power at the plate. Renowned for hitting the ball hard, Lajoie topped .300 in 16 of his 21 big league seasons, ten times batting over .350 for a lifetime average of .339. In 1901, making the jump from the Phillies to the Athletics of the new American League, Lajoie dominated the Junior Circuit. He captured the Triple Crown, led league second basemen in fielding average and batted .422 — an American League mark that has yet to be topped.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Paul Volcker is 85. Bob Newhart is 83. Carol Lawrence is 78. Jonathan Kozol is 76. John Stewart, one-third of the Kingston Trio, is 73. Raquel Welch is 72. Werner Herzog is 70. Michael Keaton is 61.

Baseball Hall of Fame member Bill Mazeroski is 76.

In 1954, 17-year-old Bill Mazeroski signed with Pittsburgh as a shortstop and was promptly moved to second base by the Pirates’ Branch Rickey. Mazeroski eventually became one of the best defensive second baseman in history with a lifetime .983 fielding percentage. The 10-time National League All-Star led the league in assists nine times, fielding percentage three times and double plays eight times. A consistent batter, with 2,016 career hits, Maz achieved hero status in Pittsburgh’s 1960 Fall Classic against the Yankees, when he became the first player ever to end the World Series with a home run.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

The first Labor Day parade was held in New York 130 years ago today.

The Oglala Lakota Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) was killed by his military guard at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on this date in 1877.

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

The Edsel was introduced by the Ford Motor Company 55 years ago today (1957), on Henry Ford II’s birthday. The car was named for his father, the only child of Henry and Clara Ford.

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

Tom Watson (63) and Raymond Floyd (70) share this birthday. Between them they won 12 major golf championships but Watson (8) never won the PGA and Floyd (4) never won The Open [British].

Beyoncé is 31.

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

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

The New York Times

Mitzi Gaynor is 81.

Richard Wright was born 104 years ago today. This from his obituary in The New York Times in 1960:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

George Hearst was born in Missouri in 1820. He went to California in 1850, panned for gold, but quickly became a good judge of mining properties. His fortune followed, first with the Comstock Lode near Virginia City, Nevada, then the Ophir mine, the Homestake gold mine in Dakota Territory, the Anaconda copper mine in Montana and the Cerro de Pasco Mine in Peru. 41-year-old Hearst married 19-year-old Phoebe Apperson in 1862 and moved to San Francisco. They had their only child the following year, William Randolph Hearst. George Hearst was United States Senator from California in 1886 and 1887 until his death in 1891. His personality as portrayed in Deadwood was largely fictional.

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

Alan Ladd, best known for his portrayal of the title role in Shane, was born 99 years ago today. He was 5-foot-6. Ladd died in 1964 at age 50.

Mort Walker is 89 today. He’s the creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, beginning at the University of Missouri.

Pulitzer-winner, for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie is 86 today.

Al Jardine, the only member of the original Beach Boys not related to the others, is 70 today. He sang the lead on “Help Me, Rhonda.”

Writer Malcolm Gladwell is 49.

Charlie Sheen is 47.

Three-time All-American softball pitcher Jennie Finch is 32 today.

Shaun White is 26.

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

Article 1:

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

Former senator but still a jackass, Alan Simpson is 81 today. Why was Simpson, then 79 years old, co-heading a commission on how to manage the deficit? His co-chair was 65. Have we no young people in this country? No one with a stake in the future?

Just a Dream, Just a Dream Jimmy Clanton is 72 today. His hit was in 1958. There’s a video of Clanton lip-syncing the song as a 60-something silver haired crooner. Trust me, he and the song only worked when he was 18.

Hall of fame basketball coach John Thompson Jr. is 71 today.

Terry Bradshaw is 64, Mark Harmon 61 and Jimmy Connors 60 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 48.

And Salma Hayek is 46. Ms. Hayek received a best actress Oscar nomination for Frida. She was born Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico; her father is Lebanese, her mother of Spanish ancestry. (Photo from Cannes 2010.)

Laurindo Almeida was born 95 years ago today in São Paulo, Brazil (he died in 1995). Bear with the intro and listen to the video.

http://youtu.be/W-9OrHd6QdM

Teacher-Astronaut Christa McAuliffe would have been 64 today.

It was on the morning of September 2nd in 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.

Vice PresidentTheodore Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair 111 years ago today.

And on this date in 1885, in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, white miners of the Union Pacific Coal Company attacked their Chinese co-workers:

… over a dispute on who had the right to work in a particularly lucrative area of the mine. The violence occurred after Chinese workers refused to participate in a strike for higher wages planned by the American miners. Twenty-eight Chinese were killed and fifteen were wounded; seventy-nine homes were set ablaze. The bodies of many of the dead and wounded were thrown into the flames. Several hundred Chinese workers were chased out of town and fled to the surrounding hills. Property damage was estimated at $150,000.

A week later, federal troops escorted Chinese laborers back to the mines. After restoring order, the troops remained at Rock Springs until 1898. Although the federal government had refused responsibility for actions in a territory, President Grover Cleveland requested that Congress indemnify the Chinese for their loss of property and Congress complied.

Library of Congress

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”

Lily Tomlin is 73 today.

Seiji Ozawa is 77 and Leonard Slatkin is 68.

Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees is 66.

Barry, Maurice [d. 2003] and Robin Gibb [d. 2012] — better known as the Bee Gees — are among the most successful vocal groups in rock and roll history. They rank sixth on the all-time top-sellers list, having sold 64 million albums to date. Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees. The trio’s contributions to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever pushed that soundtrack album past the 40 million mark. It reigned as the top-selling album in history until Michael Jackson’s Thriller — an album that Jackson has acknowledged was inspired by Saturday Night Fever — surpassed it in the Eighties. Saturday Night Fever and 1979’s Spirits Having Flown combined to yield six #1 hits, making the Bee Gees the only group in pop history to write, produce and record that many consecutive chart-topping singles.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Dr. Phil is 62.

Gloria Estefan is 55.

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

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

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

ESPN Classic

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

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

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

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

The New York Times

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

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

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

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

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

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

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

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

Today in History: Library of Congress

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

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

One of just 13 men to win baseball’s triple crown (with Baltimore in 1966), Frank Robinson is 77 today. A few of the others: Cobb, Hornsby (twice), Foxx, Gehrig, Williams (twice), Mantle. The last, Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

Frank Robinson was one of baseball’s great gamers. As Rookie of the Year in 1956 and an MVP in both leagues (with the Reds in 1961 and the Orioles in ’66), he developed a reputation as an aggressive outfielder and hard-charging baserunner. The American League Triple Crown winner in 1966, Robinson amassed 586 home runs and ended his career just 57 hits shy of the 3,000-hit club. His intelligence and leadership helped him become the Major Leagues’ first African-American field manager in 1975, when he skippered the Cleveland Indians.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Van Morrison is 67 today.

One of the greatest singers of all time, Van Morrison has been following his muse in an uncompromising way since the early Sixties. His career has been a model of artistic consistency and workmanlike devotion. He has explored soul, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, rock and roll, Celtic folk, pop balladry and more, forging a distinctive amalgam that has Morrison’s unvarnished passion at its core. He has referred to his music as “Caledonia soul,” reflecting his deep immersion in American roots music and Irish mysticism.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Violinist Itzhak Perlman is also 67 today.

New York Giants Coach Tom Coughlin is 66.

Richard Gere is 63. No Oscar nominations for Gere, but his actual middle name is Tiffany.

Two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner Edwin Moses is 57 today. Moses set the world record in the 400-meter hurdles four different times.

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, an incredible performance and film.

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

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

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

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

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

The Writer’s Almanac (2006)

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

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

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

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

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

Princess Diana died 15 years ago today.