Category: Birthdays

… of Olivia Hussey. Sixteen when she played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, she’s 55 today.

… of Liz Phair. She’s 39.

… of Jennifer Garner. She’s 34.

J. P. Morgan (1837), Nikita Khrushchev (1894), Thornton Wilder (1897) and Harry Reasoner (1923) were born on April 17.

… for Pope Benedict XVI — 79 on Easter Sunday.

… for Bobby Vinton, 71 today. Here’s hoping his roses are still red, my love.

… for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — 59.

… for Ellen Barkin. She’s 52.

… for Peter Billingsley — the kid who wants a BB-gun for Christmas so he can shoot his eye out. He’s 34.

Four time Oscar-winner, and 18 time nominee, Henry Mancini was born on this date in 1924.

“The Pink Panther”
“Peter Gunn”
“Moon River”
“Charade”
“Days of Wine and Roses”
“Mr. Lucky”

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. By 1920, “Chaplinitis,” accompanied by a flood of Chaplin dances, songs, dolls, comic books and cocktails, was rampant. Filmmaker Mack Sennett thought him “just the greatest artist who ever lived.” Other early admirers included George Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust and Sigmund Freud. (The Time 100)

… of Loretta Lynn. The coal miner’s daughter was born in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, 71 years ago. Married at 14, Ms. Lynn had four children by the time she was 17.

… of Pete Rose. You can bet that Pete is 65 today.

… of Adrien Brody. The Oscar winner (best actor for The Pianist) is 33.

… of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Buffy is 29.

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.

And 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.

… of Clarence ‘Lumpy’ Rutherford. Actor Frank Bank of Leave It to Beaver is 64.

… of Ed O’Neill. He’s 60. O’Neill was nominated for two Golden Globes for playing shoe salesman Al Bundy on Married … with Children.

… of David Letterman. He’s 59, but a part of him seemingly never left the 8th grade.

… of Tom Clancy. He’s 59. His first novel, The Hunt for Red October was published in 1984.

… of Scott Turow. He’s 57. 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 56.

… of Andy Garcia. He’s 50. Garcia was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in The Godfather: Part III.

… of Vince Gill. He’s 49.

… of Harry Morgan. Colonel Sherman Potter is 91. IMDb lists 158 films for Morgan (that includes TV).

… of Omar Sharif. Dr. Zhivago is 74. Sharif was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia.

… of David Halberstam. The Pulitizer Prize winning author is 72.

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. (Reporting America at War | PBS)

… of John Madden. He’s 70.

… of Don Meredith. He’s 68. “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

… of Paul Theroux (rhymes with through). He’s 65.

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). (The Writer’s Almanac)

… of Steven Seagal. He’s 55. No Oscar nominations for Seagal, but he has been nominated for several Razzies and won once.

… of Anne Lamott. She’s 52.

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. (The Writer’s Almanac)

… of Hugh Hefner. Hef is 80.

… of Michael Learned. Momma Walton is 67.

… of Jerry Lee Lewis, Gordon Cooper, Doc Holliday, Sam Houston and, lest we forget, New Orleans Det. Remy McSwain. Dennis Quaid is 52.

… of Cynthia Nixon. The Sex in the City star is 40. Nixon played the maid hired by Salieri to spy on Mozart in the film Amadeus.

… of Rudy Huxtable. Keshia Knight Pulliam is 27.

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.

… of Ravi Shankar. Norah Jones’ father is 86.

… of Hendley “The Scrounger,” Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford. That’s James Garner, 78 today.

… of Trapper. Wayne Rogers is 73.

… of Governor Moonbeam. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is 68.

… of Francis Ford Coppola. The Oscar-winning writer and director is 67. 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 67.

… of Russell Crowe. The 3-time best actor Oscar nominee is 42. He won for Gladiator.

… of Tiki and Ronde. The Barber brothers are 31.

… of Andre Previn. The composer-conducter and 13-time Oscar nominee — he won for Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma la Douce and My Fair Lady — is 77. Previn was married to Mia Farrow for most of the 1970s. They had three children and adopted three more.

… of Merle Haggard. The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee is 69.

Haggard has recorded more than 600 songs, about 250 of them his own compositions. (He often shares writing credits as gestures of financial and personal largess.) He has had thirty-eight #1 songs, and his “Today I Started Loving You Again” (Capitol, 1968) has been recorded by nearly 400 other artists.
In addition, Haggard is an accomplished instrumentalist, playing a commendable fiddle and a to-be-reckoned-with lead guitar. He and the Strangers played for Richard Nixon at the White House in 1973, at a barbecue on the Reagan ranch in 1982, at Washington’s Kennedy Center, and 60,000 miles from earth—courtesy of astronaut Charles Duke, who brought a tape aboard Apollo 16 in 1972. Haggard has won numerous CMA and ACM Awards including both organizations’ 1970 Entertainer of the Year awards, been nominated for scores of others, was elected to the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1977, and won Country Music Hall of Fame membership in 1994. In 1984 he won a Grammy in the Best Country Vocal Performance, Male category for “That’s the Way Love Goes.” (Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)

… of Billy Dee Williams. Lando Calrissian is 69. Williams played Gale Sayers in the classic 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song.

“There’s always been a lot of misunderstanding about Lando’s character. I used to pick up my daughter from elementary school and get into arguments with little children who would accuse me of betraying Han Solo.”

… of Barry Levinson. The six-time Oscar nominee (writing, directing) won for best director for Rain Man. He’s 64.

… of John Ratzenberger. Best known as Cliff Clavin the mailman on Cheers, Ratzenberger is also the voice of Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story movies and Yeti in Monsters, Inc. Ratzenberger is 59.

… of Jason Hervey. Wayne Arnold of “The Wonder Years” is 34.

… of Zach Braff. He’s 31 today.

… of Gale Storm. My Little Margie is 84. That TV series ran 1952-1955. Storm’s real name was neither Gale, nor Margie (nor Susanna Pomeroy). It was Josephine Cottle.

… of Colin Powell. He’s 69. As NewMexiKen exited my office in 2001, I nearly ran into Secretary Powell and Condoleezza Rice walking down the hall after leaving one of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force meetings. Powell is one of eight Secretaries of State that I’ve met or seen, but the only one I almost knocked down.

… of Michael Moriarty. He’s 65. Moriarty has won three Emmy awards, but none for playing Ben Stone in Law and Order despite five nominations. NewMexiKen liked Moriarty best as Henry “Author” Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly (with Robert De Niro). The IMDB mini biography for Moriarty says he’s 6-feet-4. Interestingly, the mini biography was written by Michael Moriarty.

Spencer Tracy was born on this date in 1900. Tracy was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar nine times and won twice, for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. Tracy died in 1967.

Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born on this date in 1908. As Bette Davis she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar 11 times, winning for Dangerous and Jezebel. Davis died in 1989.

Conductor Herbert von Karajan was also born on this date in 1908 and he, too, died in 1989.

Gregory Peck was born on this date in 1916. Peck was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar five times, winning for To Kill a Mockingbird. Mr. Peck also won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Peck died in 2003.

Joseph Lister was born on this date in 1827. His principle that bacteria must never enter a surgical incision was a breakthrough for modern surgery. Lister died in 1912.

… of Maya Angelou. The poet is 78.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Read more Maya Angelou poetry (including the rest of “Phenomenal Woman”).

… of Craig T. Nelson. The voice of Mr. Incredible is 62. Nelson won an Emmy for Coach.

… of Steve Gatlin of The Gatlin Brothers. He’s 55.

Led by Larry Gatlin, the Gatlin Brothers are one of the most popular country groups in the music’s history. Adopting the close harmony vocal techniques of the Louvins and the Everlys to the highly polished country-pop era, Larry and the Gatlin Brothers scored a number of hits during the ’70s and ’80s. Often, the group walked the line between intricate, inventive country and pure commercial material, which resulted in strong sales but occasionally poor reviews. (allmusic)

All the gold in California
Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills
In somebody else’s name

… of Robert Downey Jr. The Oscar-nominee (for Chaplin) is 41.

… of Heath Ledger. The Oscar-nominee is 27.

Anthony Perkins was born on this date in 1932. Tony Perkins is best known for his portrayal of Norman Bates in Psycho but he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Friendly Persuasion. Perkins died in 1992 as a result of pnuemonia brought on by AIDS.

… of Jane Powell. Milly in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is 77.

… of Debbie Reynolds — 74.

… of Ali MacGraw. Being 68 means never having to say you’re sorry.

… of David Eisenhower — 59.

And to think they were once all heartthrobs.

… of Larry Coryell. He turned 63.

As one of the pioneers of jazz-rock — perhaps the pioneer in the ears of some — Larry Coryell deserves a special place in the history books. He brought what amounted to a nearly alien sensibility to jazz electric guitar playing in the 1960s, a hard-edged, cutting tone, phrasing and note-bending that owed as much to blues, rock and even country as it did to earlier, smoother bop influences. Yet as a true eclectic, armed with a brilliant technique, he is comfortable in almost every style, covering almost every base from the most decibel-heavy, distortion-laden electric work to the most delicate, soothing, intricate lines on acoustic guitar. (AllMusic)

… of Linda Hunt. The actress won an Oscar for playing a man in The Year of Living Dangerously. She did not play a woman posing as a man, like Barbra Streisand in Yentl. She actually played a male part. Ms. Hunt turned 61 yesterday. NewMexiKen liked Hunt particularly as the barkeep/saloon-owner in Silverardo.

… of baseball hall-of-famer Don Sutton. He, too, turned 61 yesterday. Sutton had 324 victories, 3,574 strikeouts (fifth best all-time) and a career ERA of 3.26. Sutton never lost a turn in the starting rotation due to illness or injury. (That’s impressive.)

… of Emmylou Harris. She was 59 yesterday.

Though other performers sold more records and earned greater fame, few left as profound an impact on contemporary music as Emmylou Harris. Blessed with a crystalline voice, a remarkable gift for phrasing, and a restless creative spirit, she traveled a singular artistic path, proudly carrying the torch of “Cosmic American music” passed down by her mentor, Gram Parsons. With the exception of only Neil Young — not surprisingly an occasional collaborator — no other mainstream star established a similarly large body of work as consistently iconoclastic, eclectic, or daring; even more than three decades into her career, Harris’ latter-day music remained as heartfelt, visionary, and vital as her earliest recordings. (AllMusic)

… of SVU Detective Elliot Stabler. Actor Christopher Meloni was 45 Sunday.

The French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was born on April 2 in 1834. He is the creator of the Statue of Liberty. The statue’s face is said to be that of Bartholdi’s mother.

… of Doris Day. She’s 82 today. Day had three number one hits on her own and was the vocalist with Les Brown for one of the great hits of all-time, “Sentimental Journey.” Her most famous other single, “What Ever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” was a number two song in 1956. Day was nominated for the best actress Oscar for Pillow Talk.

… of Marsha Mason; she’s 64. Mason is a four-time Oscar nominee for best actress — Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two and Only When I Laugh.

… of Wayne Newton and Billy Joe Royal. They’re both 64. Each had exactly one top ten hit — Newton with “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (reached number 4 in 1972) and Royal with “Down in the Boondocks” (reached number 9 in 1965). Of the two, Newton has surely done the better job of hanging on.

… of Richard Thompson. He’s 57 and he’s never had a top ten hit, however:

One of Britain’s most gifted guitarists and songwriters; Richard has been the mainstay of the folk rock scene for over 30 years. Whatever the size of his record sales, he has a reputation among his peers that is second to none. (BBC – Music)

… of Alec Baldwin. He’s 48.

… of David Hyde Pierce. Frasier Crane’s brother Niles is 47.

… of Eddie Murphy. He’s 45. Murphy was 19 when he started with “Saturday Night Live.”

… of hockey great Gordie Howe, NewMexiKen’s childhood sports hero. Mr. Hockey is 78.

… of actor Richard Chamberlain and actress Shirley Jones. They’re both 72 today. Miss Jones won the best supporting actress Oscar for Elmer Gantry.

… of trumpeter and record company founder Herb Alpert. He’s 71.

… of spooky two-time Oscar nominee Christopher Walken. He’s 63. Walken won the best supporting actor Oscar for The Deer Hunter. He was also nominated for Catch Me If You Can.

… of Al Gore. He’s 58 — and tanned and rested.

… of Carla Tortelli. Rhea Perlman is 58.

… of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan McGregor is 35.

First, a question: do you care if NewMexiKen does birthdays or not?

Anyway, today is the birthday

… of singer Frankie Laine, 93 today. Laine had his share of hits in the late 40s and 50s, many with a western theme like “Do Not Forsake Me,” the theme from High Noon.

… of actor John Astin. Patty Duke’s one-time husband, TV’s Gomez Addams is 76.

… of actor Warren Beatty. He turns 69 today.

… of basketball hall-of-famer Jerry Lucas. He’s 66.

… of actor-comedian Paul Reiser. Is it Reiser that’s annoying or just the characters he plays?

… of rapper MC Hammer. He’s 43.

And it’s the birthday of singer Norah Jones, now a nearly ancient 27.

… of Leonard Nimoy. Mr. Spock is 75 today.

… of Alan Arkin. Arkin was twice nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role — for The Russians are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. He is 72.

… of James Caan. Caan was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. He’s 66.

… of Bob Woodward. The one-time journalist is 63.

… of Diana Ross. The Supreme is 62.

… of Martin Short. He’s 56.

… of the person who used to look like Jennifer Grey. She’s 44 today.

… of Michael Imperioli. The Sopranos Christopher is 40.

… of Keira Knightley. The Oscar-nominee is 21.

Harry Houdini was born on this date in 1874. The New York Times has posted their original obituary from when Houdini died in 1926 from peritonitis, which followed appendicitis.

Joseph Barbera, the cartoonist, is 95.

Annabella Sciorra, the actress, is 42.

Peyton Manning is 30.

Keisha Castle-Hughes, the Oscar-nominated actress (Whale Rider) is 16.

Thomas E. Dewey was born on this date in 1902. He was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for President in 1944 and 1948. NewMexiKen has a vague memory of visiting Albany as small child, touring the capitol, and actually sitting in Governor Dewey’s chair. (He wasn’t there.)

[Reposted from 2005 with minor changes.]

… of actor Karl Malden. The Oscar-winner (supporting actor in A Streetcar Named Desire) is 94. Malden was also nominated for supporting actor for On the Waterfront.

… of pantomimist Marcel Marceau. He’s 83.

… of Stephen Sondheim. The composer-lyricist (West Side Story) is 76.

… of actor William Shatner. Captain Kirk is 75.

… of musician George Benson. He’s 63.

… of broadcaster Wolf Blitzer. He’s 58.

… of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The composer (Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera) is 58.

… of sportscaster Bob Costas. He’s 54.

… of recent Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon. She’s 30.