Category: Birthdays

Individuals born on this date with an emphasis on American history and culture, including pop culture.

Hall of fame and Oscar-winner day

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ike Turner is 74 today.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Art Garfunkel is 64.

Sam Shepard is 62. 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.

Bill Walton is 53. He’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Kellen Winslow is 48. He’s a football hall-of-famer.

Tatum O’Neal is 42. Miss O’Neal won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at age 10 for Paper Moon.

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

And 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.

It’s the birthday

… of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane and Otis Williams of the Temptations. Both are 66 today.

… of Henry Winkler. The Fonz, is 60.

… of Timothy B. Schmit. A member of the Eagles for 28 years, Schmit is 58. Before the Eagles, he was in Poco.

It’s the birthday

… of Bill Wyman. The Rolling Stones’ bassist (1962-1992) is 69.

… of F. Murray Abraham. The Oscar-winning actor (Best Actor for Amadeus) is 66 today.

… of Kevin Kline. The Oscar-winning actor (Best Supporting for A Fish Called Wanda) is 58 today.

John Heisman

… was born on this date in 1869. He’s the guy the trophy is named after. The following milestones in Heisman’s career are excerpted from his 1936 obituary in The New York Times and put here in chronological order.

In 1888 he was a member of the Brown football team, and in 1889 of the Pennsylvania varsity football eleven.

He began his coaching career in 1892 at Oberlin College. In 1893 he coached all sports at the University of Akron. From 1895 to 1900 he coached football and baseball at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and from 1900 to 1904 was coach at Clemson College.

From 1904 to 1920 he coached football, baseball and basketball at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he developed the famous “Golden Tornado” teams.

In 1908 he was director of athletics at the Atlanta Athletic Club. From 1910 to 1914 he was president of the Atlanta Baseball Association. In 1920 he coached football at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1923 filled the same position at Washington and Jefferson College. From 1924 to 1927 he was head football coach and director of athletics at Rice Institute, Houston, Texas.

In 1923 and 1924 he was president of the American Football Coaches Association.

For the last six years [before 1936] he had been physical director of the Downtown Athletic Club.

It’s the birthday

… of Chuck Berry. Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news: Chuck’s 79, but he will live forever.

Voyager 2, the first of two Voyager spacecraft (Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1 — go figure), was sent to explore the planets of our solar system on [August 20,] 1977.

NewMexiKen wrote about The Golden Record on board each spacecraft some months ago. The record is “a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth” so that extra-terrestials might learn about life on our planet. Among the music is Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, various native music and Chuck Berry performing “Johnny B. Goode.”

If we ever hear from extra-terrestials, I imagine their message to us will be, “Send more Chuck Berry.”

… of Keith Jackson. Whoa, Nellie, he’s 77.

… of Peter Boyle. Raymond’s father is 72.

… of Mike Ditka. The football hall-of-famer is 66.

… of Pam Dawber. Mork’s Mindy is 54.

… of Martina Navratilova. She loves being 49.

… of Wynton Marsalis. He’s 44. So’s Erin Moran. That’s Richie Cunningham’s sister Joanie.

It’s the birthday

… of John Kenneth Galbraith. The economist is 97.

… of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The historian is 88. According to The Writer’s Almanac Schlesinger wrote in his autobiography that “People are likely to have read most of the books they’re ever going to read by the time they’re 25.” Really?

… of Lee Iacocca. The former Ford executive and Chrysler chairman is back on television in ads at 81.

… of Barry McGuire. The rock/folk singer is 70. NewMexiKen suspects the “Eve of Destruction” is even closer at hand.

… of Linda Lavin. Television’s “Alice” is 68.

… of Penny Marshall. The actress turned director is 63.

… of Jim Palmer. The baseball hall-of-famer is 60. We don’t see him in those underwear ads as often anymore. Palmer won World Series games in three decades (1966, 1970 and 1971, 1983).

… of Richard Carpenter. Karen’s brother is 59.

… of Emeril Lagasse. The TV chef is 46.

… of Sarah Ferguson. She’s 46.

It’s the birthday

… of John Wooden. The Wizard of Westwood is 95.

… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds in 78.

… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 66.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on this date in 1890.

NewMexiKen is the third in a line of four Kenneths. Kenneth Sr., my eponymous grandfather, was born on this date in 1899.

It’s also the birthday

… of Paul Simon. He’s 64.

… of Marie Osmond. She’s 46.

… of Leonard Alfred Schneider, born on this date in 1925. That’s Lenny Bruce, who said, “All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, I’d be standing in the breadline, right back of J. Edgar Hoover.”

And it’s the second birthday of Sofie, The Sweetie who’s a fan of Tiger Woods.

It’s the birthday

… of Eleanor Roosevelt, born on this date in 1884. The following is excerpted from the White House Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt:

Eleanor RooseveltA shy, awkward child, starved for recognition and love, Eleanor Roosevelt grew into a woman with great sensitivity to the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nations. Her constant work to improve their lot made her one of the most loved–and for some years one of the most revered–women of her generation.

She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of lovely Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore. …

In her circle of friends was a distant cousin, handsome young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They became engaged in 1903 and were married in 1905, with her uncle the President giving the bride away. Within eleven years Eleanor bore six children; one son died in infancy. …

From [Franklin’s] successful campaign for governor in 1928 to the day of his death, she dedicated her life to his purposes. She became eyes and ears for him, a trusted and tireless reporter.

When Mrs. Roosevelt came to the White House in 1933, she understood social conditions better than any of her predecessors and she transformed the role of First Lady accordingly. She never shirked official entertaining; she greeted thousands with charming friendliness. She also broke precedent to hold press conferences, travel to all parts of the country, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and express her opinions candidly in a daily syndicated newspaper column, “My Day.”

Mrs. Roosevelt

Mrs. Roosevelt died in 1962.

Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard is 80 today.

“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip” — one of Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing.

Elmore has written a serial novel for the New York Times Sunday Magazine which will appear in the magazine between September 18 and December 18, 2005. The first chapter is, “The Hanging of Willi Martz.” The setting is Camp Deep Fork, a German POW camp in October, 1944 outside of Okmulgee, Oklahoma where a couple thousand of the hundreds of thousands of German POWS imprisoned in America during the war are kept. Carl Webster (from The Hot Kid, Elmore’s latest hardcover novel) is sent to investigate a death in the camp. Was it suicide or murder?

Read the serialized novel.

(If you hadn’t guessed, yes, NewMexiKen is an Elmore Leonard fan.)

October 9

John Lennon should have been 65 today.

Charles Walgreen was born on this date in 1873. Yes, he’s the man who began the Walgreen’s drug store chain, starting in Chicago. It was a Walgreen’s soda fountain employee who invented the malted milkshake in 1922, which puts him right up there with Edison as far as NewMexiKen is concerned.

And Bruce Catton was born on this date in 1899.

Bruce Catton was fifty when he began work on the first two of what would become thirteen books on the Civil War – Mr. Lincoln’s Army, (1951) followed one year later by Glory Road. His debut was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “military history at its best.” He “combines the scholar’s appreciation of the Grand Design with a newsman’s keenness for meaningful vignette,” said Newsweek. Catton immersed himself in a vast range of primary materials, especially the diaries, letters and anecdotal reports of soldiers on the ground, which gave his books from the outset their unique, “you are there” ambience.

In 1954, Catton became the first editor of American Heritage Magazine in Washington, where he remained as Senior Editor until his death in 1978.

“There is a near-magic power of imagination in Catton’s work,” wrote Oliver Jensen, who succeeded him as editor of the magazine, “that seemed to project him physically into the battlefields, along the dusty roads and to the campfires of another age.”

Indeed, there is an inexorable atmosphere from the first pages of A Stillness at Appomattox, as the Union Army begins to consolidate the diverse tributaries of its forces for the last series of offensives. The intensive orderliness of the Northerners stands in dramatic contrast to the skirmishing, impromptu manner of the Confederates when Grant’s aggressive and arrogant campaign seems to take on a life of its own.

As we march along with the Army of the Potomac, Catton swoops and peaks, from the lofty perspective of the White House down to the cries of the wounded in the mud; from General George Gordon Meade pacing back and forth with agitation under a tree, watching the battle unfold on a field below, to the ever-shrinking gap between the forces in blue and the outskirts of Richmond.

But there is one color permeating the entire narrative, and that is neither blue nor grey, but rather the relentless flow of blood — “one long funeral procession,” laments a despairing General Gouverneur Warren. Through the grandeur of its elegiac tone, A Stillness at Appomattox speaks magisterially of all wars.

Neil Baldwin

It’s the birthday

… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 83.

… of Diahann Carroll. The actress is 70. She was once married to singer Vic Damone and once engaged to Sidney Poitier and later to David Frost. Ms. Carroll was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Claudine. Her TV sitcom “Julia” was the first to star an African-American woman.

… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 55. A great book.

… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official second daughter of NewMexiKen, is 33.

… of Kate Winslett. The actress is 30. She’s been nominated for the best actress and best supporting actress Oscar twice each.

… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on this date in 1902.

But by 1941, “I felt it was time I was on my own,” Mr. Kroc once recalled, and he became the exclusive sales agent for a machine that could prepare five milkshakes at a time.

Then, in 1954, Mr. Kroc heard about Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a fast-food emporium in San Bernadino, Calif., that was using several of his mixers. As a milkshake specialist, Mr. Kroc later explained, “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 at one time.”

…

Mr. Kroc talked to the McDonald brothers about opening franchise outlets patterned on their restaurant, which sold hamburgers for 15 cents, french fries for 10 cents and milkshakes for 20 cents.

Eventually, the McDonalds and Mr. Kroc worked out a deal whereby he was to give them a small percentage of the gross of his operation. In due course the first of Mr. Kroc’s restaurants was opened in Des Plaines, another Chicago suburb, long famous as the site of an annual Methodist encampment.

Business proved excellent, and Mr. Kroc soon set about opening other restaurants. The second and third, both in California, opened later in 1955; in five years there were 228, and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers.

Source: Kroc obituary in 1984 from The New York Times

And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother; she would have been 80 today. In the month before she died in 1974, Mom made some cuttings of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Those cuttings (and their descendants) still grow in NewMexiKen’s living room more than 31 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.

It’s the birthday

… of Charlton Heston. Moses is 81 today. Heston won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.

… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 59 today.

It’s also the birthday of Buster Keaton, born on this date in 1895.

Buster Keaton is considered one of the greatest comic actors of all time. His influence on physical comedy is rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin. Like many of the great actors of the silent era, Keaton’s work was cast into near obscurity for many years. Only toward the end of his life was there a renewed interest in his films. An acrobatically skillful and psychologically insightful actor, Keaton made dozens of short films and fourteen major silent features, attesting to one of the most talented and innovative artists of his time. …

It was this “stone face,” however, that came to represent a sense of optimism and everlasting inquisitiveness.

In films such as THE NAVIGATOR (1924), THE GENERAL (1926), AND THE CAMERAMAN (1928), Keaton portrayed characters whose physical abilities seemed completely contingent on their surroundings. Considered one of the greatest acrobatic actors, Keaton could step on or off a moving train with the smoothness of getting out of bed. Often at odds with the physical world, his ability to naively adapt brought a melancholy sweetness to the films.

Source: American Masters | PBS

And it’s the birthday of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th President of the United States. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on this date in 1822.

As the Library of Congress tells it:

Rutherford B. Hayes became…president in 1877 after a bitterly-contested election against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but disputed electoral ballots from four states prompted Congress to create a special electoral commission to decide the election’s result. The fifteen-man commission of congressmen and Supreme Court justices, eight of whom were Republicans, voted along party lines deciding the election in Hayes’s favor.

It’s the birthday

… of James Whitmore. The actor, twice nominated for an Oscar, is 83. He was the sole cast member of Give ’em Hell, Harry!.

… of Jimmy Carter. The 39th President is 81 today.

… of Tom Bosley. Richie Cunningham’s father is 78.

… of Julie Andrews. Mary Poppins is 70. Ms. Andrews won the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins; she was nominated for The Sound of Music and Victor/Victoria. Of course, her claim to fame really was as Eliza Doolittle in the stage version of My Fair Lady.

… of Rod Carew. The baseball hall of fame player is 60.

… of Tim O’Brien. The novelist is 59. O’Brien is the author of Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979 National Book Award in fiction, and The Things They Carried, which was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of 1990, received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award in fiction, and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the Lake of the Woods was named by Time as the best novel of 1994. The book also received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was selected as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.

Chief Justive William Rehnquist would have been 81 today.

It’s the birthday

… of Deborah Kerr. The six-time Oscar nominee for Best Actress is 84 today.

… of Angie Dickinson. “Pepper” is 74 today.

… of Johnny Mathis. Chances are the singer is 70 today.

… of Barry Williams. Greg Brady is 51 today.

James Dean was killed on this date 50 years ago at the junction of California Highways 41 and 46.

[Dean] and his mechanic, Rolf Wuetherich, were traveling in Dean’s new Porsche Spyder 550, which he planned to race that afternoon in Salinas. Dean had traded in his Porsche Speedster just nine days earlier, purchasing the Spyder for $6,900 and naming it “Little Bastard.”

From JamesDean.com.

Truman Capote was born in New Orleans on this date in 1924. The Writer’s Almanac had more on Capote last year than this.

Probably not quite as much shakin’ goin’ on

Jerry Lee Lewis is 70 today.

Ian McShane is 63. Big party at the Gem. (McShane plays the c***s**k** Al Swearengen on Deadwood.)

Bryant Gumbel is 57.

Gene Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on this date in 1907. The following is from the biography at the Official Website for Gene Autry:

Discovered by humorist Will Rogers, in 1929 Autry was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gained a popular following, a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929, and soon after, performed on the “National Barn Dance” for radio station WLS in Chicago. Autry first appeared on screen in 1934 and up to 1953 popularized the musical Western and starred in 93 feature films. In 1940 theater exhibitors of America voted Autry the fourth biggest box office attraction, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy.

Autry made 635 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold [That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine]. His Christmas and children’s records Here Comes Santa Claus and Peter Cottontail are among his platinum recordings. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the second all-time best selling Christmas single, boasts in excess of 30 million in sales.

… Autry’s great love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels in 1961. Active in Major League Baseball, Autry held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death [1998].

… Autry is the only entertainer to have five stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, one each for radio, records, movies, television, and live performance including rodeo and theater appearances.

Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show aired from 1940 to 1956. His television program from 1950 through 1955 (91 episodes), and long after in syndication.

Sam Adams

Samuel Adams Beers are named for Sam Adams the brewer of beer and revolution, who was born on this date in 1722.

Adams’s contributions to the independence movement were many and varied. During the 1760s and 1770s he frequently wrote polemical articles for the Boston newspapers, and he recruited talented younger men—Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, and his second cousin John Adams, among others—into the Patriot cause. It was Samuel Adams who conceived of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and took a leading role in its formation and operations from 1772 through 1774. He was among those who planned and coordinated Boston’s resistance to the Tea Act, which climaxed in the famous Tea Party, and he later worked for the creation of the Continental Congress, helping propel it into supporting Massachusetts in the crisis.

Source: Reader’s Companion to American History

Adams was one of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

It’s the birthday of

… Wilford Brimley. He’s 71 today. Wilford, you’ve got to cut out the old man commercials. I thought you were at least 10 years older. (Brimley was 53-54 when he played the old guy in Cocoon.)

… Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s 33. Sigh.

… Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt. He’s 56. NewMexiKen had to admire Schmidt when, during a recent interview, he said he “would have” used steroids if they were around when he played. Whatever it took.

Wrong, but refreshing candor.

NewMexiKen was actually at a Phillies game circa 1982 or 83 where Schmidt struck out four times on 12 pitches. Then, after we left, he hit the game winning home run.

It’s the birthday

… of Michael Douglas. He’s 61.

… of Mrs. Douglas. Catherine Zeta-Jones is 36.

… of Will Smith. The Prince is 37.

… of Mark Hamill. Luke is 54.

… of Barbara Walters. She’s 74.

The Shakespeare of sportswriters was born on this date 100 years ago. That’s Red Smith. Here he is on the 1951 World Series (after the Giants’ miraculous playoff win to be there):

Magic and sorcery and incantation and spells had taken the Giants to the championship of the National League and put them into the World Series … But you don’t beat the Yankees with a witch’s broomstick. Not the Yankees, when there’s hard money to be won.

On DiMaggio:

Sometimes a fellow gets a little tired of writing about DiMaggio; a fellow thinks, “there must be some other ball player in the world worth mentioning.” But there isn’t really, not worth mentioning in the same breath with Joe DiMaggio.

It’s the birthday

… of Tommy Lasorda. The former Dodgers manager is 78 today.

… of Lute Olson. The University of Arizona’s Hall-of-Fame basketball coach is 71.

… of semi-famous daughters of very famous fathers. Shari Belafonte is 51. Debby Boone is 49.
Alaskan Bee
… of Joan Jett. The rocker is 47. Hey Joan, send me a digital copy of I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll.

… of Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima. The Brazilian football star is 29.

And it’s also the birthday of John, official youngest brother of NewMexiKen. John is a multi-talented guy — photography (as you can see), black belt, racing cyclist, actor and world traveler.

It’s the birthday

Bill Murray is 55 today. Nominated for an Oscar for Lost in Translation, NewMexiKen still thinks Murray’s best effort was as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.

Stephen King is 58. The Writer’s Almanac tells us about King:

It’s the birthday of the novelist Stephen King, born in Portland, Maine (1947). His father was a merchant seaman who left the family when Stephen was just two. He has no memories of his father, but one day he found a whole box full of his father’s science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, and that box of his father’s books inspired him to start writing horror stories.

He studied creative writing in college. He tried to write some literary stories, but he found that writing about giant man-eating rats was a lot more fun. He worked at a gas station after college and at a laundromat. His wife worked at Dunkin’ Donuts. He did his writing in the furnace room of his trailer home. He did the first drafts typed single-spaced and no margins to save paper.

He was working as a teacher when he wrote his first novel about a weird high school girl with psychic powers named Carrie White. He gave up on the book at one point and threw it in the trash. His wife rescued it. Carrie was published in 1973. The hard cover didn’t sell well, but then his agent called to say that the paperback rights had sold for $400,000.