Category: Birthdays

William Jefferson Clinton is 59 today.

Shelley Winters is 85 today. Ms. Winters has won two Oscars, both for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She won in 1960 for The Diary of Anne Frank and again in 1966 for A Patch of Blue. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in 1952 for A Place in the Sun and nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1973 for The Poseidon Adventure.

Robert Redford is 68 today. Redford won the Best Director Oscar for Ordinary People (1981), and was nominated for that award again for Quiz Show (1995). He was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for The Sting (1974).

Rosalynn Carter is 78 today.

Patrick Swayze is 53; Edward Norton 36.

Roberto Clemente should be 71.

… is 81 today. Check out the Davy Crockett/Disney 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Fess Parker Winery.

Parker and NewMexiKen have at least one thing in common. We had the same Russian language professor in college; Parker at Texas, NewMexiKen at Arizona. He was Professor Arthur Coleman and, as I remember it, he was the very first American Ph.D. ever in Slavic languages. By the time he showed up at Arizona in the early 1960s, Coleman was more-or-less retired, staying just one year as a visiting professor — as much character as educator, which is why we learned he’d taught Fess Parker.

William Clark, of Lewis and Clark, was born on this date in 1770. He died in 1838. Here is Clark’s entry in the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on his 35th birthday:

A fine day Capt. Lewis left me at 8 oClock just below the place I entered a verrey high mountain which jutted its tremedious Clifts on either Side for 9 Miles, the rocks ragide Some verry dark & other part verry light rock the light rocks is Sand Stone. The water Swift & very Sholey. I killed a Ibix on which the whole party Dined, after passing through the Mountain we entered a wide extesive vallie of from 4 to 8 Miles wide verry leavell a Creek falls in at the Commencement of this Vallie on the Lard Side, the river widens & spreds into Small Chanels. W[e] encamped on the Lard Side opposit a large Creek I sent out Jo: & R fields to hunt this evening they killed 5 Deer, I saw a large Bear eateing Currents this evining The river so rapid that the greatest exertion is required by all to get the boats on wind S W Murckery at sun rise 50° Ab. 0

Francis Scott Key was born on this date in 1779.

Richard Henry Dana in 1815.

Herman Melville in 1819.

Robert Todd Lincoln, the first child of Abraham Lincoln and the only one to survive to adulthood, was born on this date in 1843. He died in 1926. (Lincoln’s son Eddie was born in 1846 and died in 1850. Son Willie died at age 12 in 1862. Son Tad (Thomas) died at age 18 in 1871.)

Jerry Garcia was born on this date in 1942. He died in 1995.

is 40 today. She’s the author of the Harry Potter books — and has an intriguing web site.

was born on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan, on this date in 1863. Though a tinkerer, Ford’s claim to fame is not for inventing the automobile but, as the Library of Congress tells us, for the mass production of them.

From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed tinkering with machines. Farm work and a job in a Detroit machine shop afforded him ample opportunities to experiment. He later worked as a part-time employee for the Westinghouse Engine Company. By 1896, Ford had constructed his first horseless carriage which he sold in order to finance work on an improved model.

Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, proclaiming, “I will build a car for the great multitude.” In October 1908, he did so, offering the Model T for $950. In the Model T’s nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone. The Model T heralds the beginning of the Motor Age; the car evolved from luxury item for the well-to-do to essential transportation for the ordinary man.

Ford revolutionized manufacturing. By 1914, his Highland Park, Michigan plant, using innovative production techniques, could turn out a complete chassis every 93 minutes. This was a stunning improvement over the earlier production time of 728 minutes. Using a constantly-moving assembly line, subdivision of labor, and careful coordination of operations, Ford realized huge gains in productivity.

In 1914, Ford began paying his employees five dollars a day, nearly doubling the wages offered by other manufacturers. He cut the workday from nine to eight hours in order to convert the factory to a three-shift workday. Ford’s mass-production techniques would eventually allow for the manufacture of a Model T every 24 seconds. His innovations made him an international celebrity.

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” Henry Ford

Oddly enough, the man who said history was more or less bunk established one of the great historical museums — the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Mick Jagger is 62 today.

Two great comediennes were born on this date — Gracie Allen in 1902 and Vivian Vance in 1909. Miss Vance was only two years older than her long-time co-star Lucille Ball.

New York ratified the Constitution on this date in 1788, thereby becoming the 11th state.

Estelle Getty of The Golden Girls is 82.

Matt LeBlanc, aka Joey, is 38.

The San Francisco-based longshoreman, philosopher and writer Eric Hoffer was born on this date in 1902.

Henry Knox, a book-seller turned army general during the American Revolution, and America’s first secretary of war, was born on this date in 1750. It was Knox who brought 50 cannon from captured Fort Ticonderoga to Boston via ox-cart in the winter of 1775-1776 and thus assured the British withdrawal.

Today is also the birthday of NewMexiKen’s dad. Happy birthday, Dad.

Don Knotts is 81 today.

Janet Reno is 67.

Edward Hermann is 62.

Robin Williams is 54. Williams has been nominated for the best actor Oscar three times without winning. He did win the best supporting actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting.

Jon Lovitz is 48.

Brandi Chastain is 37.

Ernest Hemingway was born on this date in 1899.

Tucson’s favorite daughter, Linda Ronstadt, is 59 today.

Alex Karras, All-American, NFL star, TV sitcom actor and — most notably — Mongo in Blazing Saddles, is 69 today.

Rembrandt Van Rijn was born in Leiden, Netherlands on this date in 1606.

On this date in 1913, the hottest temperature ever reported in North America was recorded at the Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, California. 134ºF/56.7ºC … in the shade.

Wyoming joined the Union as the 44th state on this date in 1890. Wyoming is the 10th largest state, but has the fewest people of any state. Its highest point is 13,804 feet above sea level; it’s lowest 3,099.

Lolita is 59 today; that is, actress Sue Lyon, who played the title role in the 1962 film.

President Bush and Sylvester Stallone are 59 today. Nancy Reagan is 84 and Merv Griffin 80.

Bill Haley (“Rock Around the Clock”) was born on this date in 1925; he died in 1981.

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was born on this date in 1907 [she claimed 1910]. The following is from the obituary in The New York Times when Ms. Kahlo died in 1954:

Frida Kahlo, wife of Diego Rivera, the noted painter, was found dead in her home today. Her age was 44. She had been suffering from cancer for several years.

She also was a painter and also had been active in leftist causes. She made her last public appearance in a wheel chair at a meeting here in support of the now ousted regime of Communist- backed President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala.

Frida Kahlo began painting in 1926 while obliged to lie in bed during convalescence from injuries suffered in a bus accident. Not long afterward she showed her work to Diego Rivera, who advised, “go on painting.” They were married in 1929, began living apart in 1939, were reunited in 1941.

Usually classed as a surrealist, the artist had no special explanation for her methods. She said only: “I put on the canvas whatever comes into my mind.” She gave one-woman shows in Mexico City, New York and elsewhere, and is said to have been the first woman artist to sell a picture to the Louvre.

Some of her pictures shocked beholders. One showed her with her hands cut off, a huge bleeding heart on the ground nearby, and on either side of her an empty dress. This was supposed to reveal how she felt when her husband went off alone on a trip. Another self-portrait presented the artist as a wounded deer, still carrying the shafts of nine arrows.

It’s the date on which the Continental Congress approved a resolution declaring independence (1776) — the Declaration of Independence stating the reasons was approved two days later.

It’s the date on which the second day of battle was fought at Gettysburg (1863).

It’s the date on which Charles J. Guiteau assassinated President James A. Garfield (1881).

It’s the date on which Thurgood Marshall was born (1908).

It’s the date on which the Air Force says a weather balloon crashed near Roswell, New Mexico (1947).

It’s the date on which Ernest Hemingway committed suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho (1961).

It’s the day Luci Baines Johnson, the younger daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, turns 58.

Larry David turns 58 today as well.

Lindsay Lohan is 19.

Olivia de Havilland is 89 today. Miss de Havilland was nominated for an acting Oscar five times, winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She lost the best supporting actress Oscar for Gone With the Wind to Hattie McDaniel.

Deborah Harry of Blondie is 60.

Dan Aykroyd is 53.

Diana, Princess of Wales, would have been 44 today.

was born on this date in 1880. The following is from the obituary in The New York Times when she died in 1968.

For the first 18 months of her life Helen Keller was a normal infant who cooed and cried, learned to recognize the voices of her father and mother and took joy in looking at their faces and at objects about her home. “Then” as she recalled later, “came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby.”

The illness, perhaps scarlet fever, vanished as quickly as it struck, but it erased not only the child’s vision and hearing but also, as a result, her powers of articulate speech.

Her life thereafter, as a girl and as a woman, became a triumph over crushing adversity and shattering affliction. In time, Miss Keller learned to circumvent her blindness, deafness and muteness; she could “see” and “hear” with exceptional acuity; she even learned to talk passably and to dance in time to a fox trot or a waltz. Her remarkable mind unfolded, and she was in and of the world, a full and happy participant in life.

What set Miss Keller apart was that no similarly afflicted person before had done more than acquire the simplest skills.

But she was graduated from Radcliffe; she became an artful and subtle writer; she led a vigorous life; she developed into a crusading humanitarian who espoused Socialism; and she energized movements that revolutionized help for the blind and the deaf.

is 30 today; that is, Tobey Maguire.

Carly Simon is 60 today.

Michael J. Fox is 44.

West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is also 44.

Twice nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (in two remarkably disparate roles), Johnny Depp is 42.

Queen (aka Princess) (aka Senator) Padmé Naberrie Amidalais is 24. She’s also known as Sara (Cold Mountain), Sam (Garden State) and Alice (Closer). That’s Natalie Portman.

is 71 today. He debuted in the Disney Silly Symphony cartoon “The Wise Little Hen” on this date in 1934. (Donald Duck is one of three Disney characters with an “official” birthday. The others are Mickey and Minnie, who debuted on November 18, 1928.)

Donald Duck actually appeared in more theatrical cartoons than Mickey Mouse — 128. Donald’s middle name is Fauntleroy.

Q: Why does Donald Duck wear a towel when getting out of the shower when he usually doesn’t even wear pants?

A: Donald puts a towel when he gets out of the shower to dry off! When he gets out of the shower he’s pretty wet and doesn’t want to drip water all over the bathroom floor.

Seriously, Donald Duck was created as a human-like character. He reacts to many situations the same way that a man would. Since a man would normally wrap a towel around his waist when stepping out of the shower, so does Donald.

Q: What are the names of Donald Duck’s nephews? Who was their mother?

A: Donald’s nephews are Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They made their debut in the Donald Duck Sunday comic page on October 17, 1937, and first appeared on film in “Donald’s Nephews” in 1938. Huey wears red, Dewey wears blue, and Louie wears green.

Their mother was Donald’s sister, Dumbella Duck.

Disney Online

was born on this date in 1867. This from the Library of Congress, which has more:

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. America’s most significant architect, Wright’s “Prairie Style” transformed 20th-century residential design while his plans for businesses, churches, and museums also proved simultaneously innovative and practical. Wright’s commitment to “organic architecture”—the belief that structures should harmonize with both occupants and landscape—underscored his creative genius.

Angelina Jolie is 30. So many men, so little time.

Doctor Carter — Noah Wyle — is 34.

Gordon Waller of Peter and Gordon (“World Without Love,” “I Go to Pieces”) is 60.

Chester, Sam McCloud and David Mann (the guy who is chased by the truck in “Duel”) is 81. That’s Dennis Weaver.

Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’ drummer is 64.

Jerry “The Beaver” Mathers is 57 today.

Comedian Dana Carvey is 50.

Elizabeth was crowned Queen on this date in 1953.