Category: Birthdays

Today is the birthday

… of William Christopher. M.A.S.H.‘s Father Francis Mulcahy is 79.

… of Hall-of-Fame pitcher Juan Marichal, 74.

The pride of both the Dominican Republic and the Giants, Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez won 243 games and lost only 142 over 16 marvelous seasons. The high-kicking right-hander enjoyed six 20-win seasons, hurled a no-hitter in 1963 and was named to nine All-Star teams. The Dominican Dandy twice led the National League in complete games and shutouts, finishing 244 contests during his career, while fanning 2,303 and compiling a 2.89 ERA. After his playing days, Marichal became minister of sports in his homeland.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Wanda Jackson. The country-rockabilly singer is 74.

The rockabilly field of the Fifties wasn’t exactly crowded with female performers, but Wanda Jackson didn’t let that stop her from making her mark. She emerged from a small town in Oklahoma to become the first Queen of Rockabilly. Jackson started out her career singing with the likes of Hank Thompson and Red Foley, who hosted the Ozark Jubilee Barn Dance. Her first contract, arranged with Thompson’s assistance, was with Decca Records, and she had a country hit in 1954 with the duet “You Can’t Have My Love.”

With encouragement from Elvis Presley, who she met while on a package tour in 1955, Jackson moved in the direction of rock and roll. “You should be doing this kind of music,” he advised her. Her early singles for Capitol Records, to which she signed in 1956, typically consisted of a country song and a rock and roll number. Jackson’s rockabilly recordings – including such red-hot Fifties sides as “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Mean Mean Man” and “Honey Bop” – are among the greatest ever made, regardless of gender. These rocking sides featured renowned country-music accompanists such as Buck Owens (rhythm guitar) and Ralph Mooney (pedal steel).

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

… of Tom Petty; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 61.

In a sense, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are America’s band. Durable, resourceful, hard-working, likeable and unpretentious, they rank among the most capable and classic rock bands of the last quarter century. They’ve mastered the idiom’s fundamentals and digested its history while stretching themselves creatively and contributing to rock’s legacy. Moreover they are, like such compatriots as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, a people’s band, writing of everyday struggles and frustrations while offering redemption through tough-minded, big-hearted, tuneful songs.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Calvin Cordozar Broadus. Snoop Dogg is 40.

… of John Krasinski. He’s 32.

Actor Jerry Orbach was born on this date in 1935.

Hall-of-famer Mickey Mantle was born on this date in 1931. He died in 1995.

Mickey Mantle was a star from the start, parlaying a talent for the game and boyish good looks into iconic status. In spite of a series of devastating injuries, Mantle accumulated a long list of impressive accomplishments, finishing his 18-year career with 536 home runs and a .298 batting average. The switch-hitting Commerce Comet won three MVP Awards (1956, ’57, ’62) and a Triple Crown (1956). He contributed to 12 pennants and seven World Series titles in his first 14 seasons while establishing numerous World Series records, including most home runs (18).

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Bela Lugosi was born on this date in 1882. The Romanian-born actor (part of Austria-Hungary then) was best known for playing Count Dracula in the 1931 film. Lugosi died in 1956.

The “fifth Marx brother” Margaret Dumont was also born Daisy Juliette Baker on October 20th in 1882. Dumont was the Brothers’ foil in many of their films.

Dumont: Oh, I’m afraid after we’re married a while a beautiful young girl will come along and you’ll forget all about me.

Groucho: Don’t be silly. I’ll write you twice a week.

Today is the birthday

… of Bob Strauss, the politico and diplomat. Ambassador Strauss is 93.

… of John le Carré. The author is 80.

… of Peter Max. The artist is 74.

… of John Lithgow. He’s 66. Lithgow has twice been nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar — Terms of Endearment and The World According to Garp.

… of Jeannie C. Riley, singer of the 1968 hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.” She, too, is 66.

… of one of the evil influences in American political life. Grover Norquist is 55.

… of Jennifer Holliday. The Tony Award winner is 51.

… of Evander Holyfield, 49.

… of one-time first daughter Amy Carter. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s little girl is 44.

… of Academy Award nominee for directing Jason Reitman. He’s 34. The nomination was for Juno.

Robert Reed was born on this date in 1932. A fine actor but one who will always be remembered most as the dad on The Brady Bunch. Reed’s best TV role was as Kenneth Preston, son in the excellent early 1960s father-son lawyer drama The Defenders. His father was played by E. G. Marshall. Reed died in 1992.

Winston Hubert McIntosh was born on this date in 1944. A founding member of The Wailers, Peter Tosh also was an international solo star and songwriter. He was shot and killed along with five others by a friend during an argument on September 11, 1987.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22% (508 points) on Black Monday, October 19, 1987. Shouldn’t they have called it Red Monday?

Today is the birthday

… of Lee Iacocca. The former Ford executive and Chrysler chairman is 87.

… of Barry McGuire. The rock/folk singer is 76. His “Eve of Destruction” is even closer at hand.

… of Linda Lavin. Television’s “Alice” is 74.

… of Carole Penny Marshall. The actress turned director is 69.

… of Jim Palmer. The baseball hall-of-famer is 66. Palmer won World Series games in three decades (1966, 1970 and 1971, 1983).

Jim Palmer was the high-kicking, smooth-throwing hurler of Baltimore’s six championship teams of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. His impressive numbers include 268 victories, a .638 winning percentage, eight 20-win seasons and a 2.86 ERA over 19 seasons. He also pitched his entire career without allowing a grand slam. Intensity was the trademark of this three-time Cy Young Award winner, who combined intelligence, strength, competitiveness and consistency to become the Orioles’ all-time winningest pitcher.

Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Richard Carpenter. Karen’s brother is 65.

… of Emeril Lagasse. The TV chef is 52.

… of Dominic West, foremost Detective Jimmy McNulty of The Wire, 42.

In his honor, the 100 greatest lines from the best TV series ever.

ABSOLUTELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK AND SOME SPOILERS!

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith was born 103 years ago today. Galbraith once wrote a speech for President Lyndon Johnson. Galbraith was a very prominent economist and not a speech writer, but he worked diligently on the draft and was impressed with what he produced. It was given to LBJ who, out of respect for the economist, told him personally what he thought. “Ken,” LBJ said. “Writing a speech is a lot like wetting your pants. What feels warm and comforting to you can just seem cold and sticky to everyone else.” Galbraith died in 2006.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was born 94 years ago today. By the time of his death in 2006 Schlesinger had become a celebrity — a person known mostly for being well-known — but he was the winner of two Pulitizer Prizes in history — The Age of Jackson and A Thousand Days.

Before Schlesinger, historians thought of American democracy as the product of an almost mystical frontier or agrarian egalitarianism. The Age of Jackson toppled that interpretation by placing democracy’s origins firmly in the context of the founding generation’s ideas about the few and the many, and by seeing democracy’s expansion as an outcome of struggles between classes, not sections. More than any previous account, Schlesinger’s examined the activities and ideas of obscure, ordinary Americans, as well as towering political leaders. While he identified most of the key political events and changes of the era, Schlesinger also located the origins of modern liberal politics in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, and in their belief, as he wrote, that future challenges “will best be met by a society in which no single group is able to sacrifice democracy and liberty to its interests.”

Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

Mario Puzo was born on October 15th in 1920. The Writer’s Almanac told us this in 2004:

[Puzo is] best known as the author of the novel The Godfather (1969), which was made into a movie in 1972. People had written novels and made movies about the mafia before, but the mafia characters had always been the villains. Puzo was the first person to write about members of the mafia as the sympathetic main characters of a story. The son of Italian immigrants, he started out trying to write serious literary fiction. He published two novels that barely sold any copies. He fell into debt, trying to support his family as a freelance writer. One Christmas Eve, he had a severe gall bladder attack and took a cab to the hospital. When he got out of the cab, he was in so much pain that he fell into the gutter. Lying there, he said to himself, “Here I am, a published writer, and I am dying like a dog.” He vowed that he would devote the rest of his writing life to becoming rich and famous. The Godfather became the best-selling novel of the 1970s, and many critics credit Puzo with inventing the mafia as a serious literary and cinematic subject. He went on to publish many other books, including The Sicilian (1984) and The Last Don (1996), but he always felt that his best book was the last book he wrote before he became a success – The Fortunate Pilgrim (1964), about an ordinary Italian immigrant family.

Puzo died in 1999.

Edith Bolling Galt Wilson was born on October 15, 1872. The 59-year-old president and widower Woodrow Wilson married the 43-year-old widow Mrs. Galt in 1915. (Michael Douglas was 51 and Annette Benning 37 when they played a fictional “first couple” in the 1995 film The American President.)

[President Wilson’s] health failed in September 1919; a stroke left him partly paralyzed. His constant attendant, Mrs. Wilson took over many routine duties and details of government. But she did not initiate programs or make major decisions, and she did not try to control the executive branch. She selected matters for her husband’s attention and let everything else go to the heads of departments or remain in abeyance. Her “stewardship,” she called this. And in My Memoir, published in 1939, she stated emphatically that her husband’s doctors had urged this course upon her.

The White House

Mrs. Wilson lived until 1961.

My eponymous grandfather, the first NewMexiKen, was born on October 14, 1899. (I’m III. My oldest son is IV. Luckily he only has a daughter.)

Pop, as he was called by his children, served in the U.S. Army Cavalry in New Mexico during World War I. My cousin has photos taken by Pop while stationed at Columbus, New Mexico. I’m hoping to display some of them here soon.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on October 14th in 1890. His family moved to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892 and he graduated from Abilene High School in 1909. Eisenhower attended the U.S. Military Academy, class of 1915, the class the stars fell on — of 164 graduates, 59 attained the rank of general, led by Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. Eisenhower never saw combat first hand during his 37 year army career.

Military leadership of the victorious Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice elected him President of the United States. His enormous political success was largely personal, for he was not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb talent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war confrontations with Soviet power around the world and to lead the country to domestic prosperity.

Eisenhower’s gift for inspiring confidence in himself perplexed some analysts because he was not a dashing battlefield general nor a masterly military tactician; apparently what counted most in his generalship also impressed the voters most: an ability to harmonize diverse groups and disparate personalities into a smoothly functioning coalition.

Obituary, The New York Times, 1969

John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, would have been 101 this October 14th. Ten national championships in 12 years.

October 14th is the birthday

… of former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. Guess he knew what he was talking about because he’s 95.

… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds is 84.

… of former Nixon White House Counsel and convicted multiple felon John Dean, 73.

… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 72.

… of the judge of Night Court, Harry Anderson, who is 59.

… of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. She’s 37.

… of Usher. Usher Terry Raymond IV is 33.

Lillian Gish (her real name) was born on October 14th in 1893. Her career on stage, screen and television ran from 1912-1987. She lived to be 99, but never married or had children.

Edward Estlin Cummings was born October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We know him as e.e. cummings.

In his verse, Cummings tended to substitute verbs for nouns, he used patently eccentric punctuation, and he disregarded norms of capitalization. But despite unconventional style, he wrote about traditional themes, stuff like love and nature.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge–my girl’s tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.

William Penn was born on October 14th, 1644. He was given 45,000 square miles of what is now eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware by the Duke of York in 1682 (anti-Quaker Delaware split off in 1704). In the 18th century, Pennsylvania, based on what Penn established, was the most tolerant and democratic of the colonies.

In addition to the White House and Sofie, October 13th is also the birthday

… of Margaret Thatcher, 86.

… of Melinda Dillon. That’s the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She’s 72. Dillon was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for that role and for her part in Absence of Malice. But best of all, she was the mom in The Christmas Story.

Mother: Randy, how do the little piggies go?
Randy: [oinks like a pig]
Mother: That’s right. Oink, oink! Now show me how the piggies eat.
[points to his plate]
Mother: This is your trough. Show me how the piggies eat. Be a good boy. Show mommy how the piggies eat.
Randy: [plunges face into mashed potatoes, oinks, eats, and laughs]
Mother: [laughs] Mommy’s little piggie!

… of Paul Simon. He’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” at 70.

Paul Simon is among the most erudite and daring songsmiths in popular music. After the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel in 1970, Simon embarked on a fruitful solo career that’s been notable for lyrical acuity, impeccable musicianship and stylistic daring. While Simon and Garfunkel worked largely (but not exclusively) in the folk idiom, Simon the solo artist has roamed wherever his muse has taken him – and that has literally meant around the world. His is not so much a conventional career in music as an odyssey of discovery using “intuitive flashes, synaptic leaps and shorthand logic” (in Simon’s own words) to help him on his way.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Demond Wilson. Sanford’s son is 65.

… of Sammy Hagar, 64.

However, Van Halen bounced back strong following Roth’s departure. The group recruited Sammy Hagar, who sang and played guitar. Hagar had started out with the hard-rock group Montrose and had a highly successful solo career. He fit well with Van Halen, with whom he was more personally compatible than his predecessor. In fact, the newly harmonious group scored its first Number One album with 5150, on which Hagar handles lead vocals.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of John Ford Coley and Lucy J. Dalton; each is 63.

… of Marie Osmond. She’s 52, born on her father’s 42nd birthday.

… of Jerry Rice. He’s 49.

… of Kate Walsh, 44. “The real question is, when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?”

… of skater Nancy Kerrigan. She’s 42. “Why, why, why?”

… of Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is 40.

The woman known as Molly Pitcher was born on October 13, 1754.

An Artillery wife, Mary Hays McCauly (better known as Molly Pitcher) shared the rigors of Valley Forge with her husband, William Hays. Her actions during the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 became legendary. That day at Monmouth was as hot as Valley Forge was cold. Someone had to cool the hot guns and bathe parched throats with water.

Across that bullet-swept ground, a striped skirt fluttered. Mary Hays McCauly was earning her nickname “Molly Pitcher” by bringing pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water to the exhausted and thirsty men. She also tended to the wounded and once, heaving a crippled Continental soldier up on her strong young back, carried him out of reach of hard-charging Britishers. On her next trip with water, she found her artilleryman husband back with the guns again, replacing a casualty. While she watched, Hays fell wounded. The piece, its crew too depleted to serve it, was about to be withdrawn. Without hesitation, Molly stepped forward and took the rammer staff from her fallen husband’s hands. For the second time on an American battlefield, a woman manned a gun. (The first was Margaret Corbin during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.) Resolutely, she stayed at her post in the face of heavy enemy fire, ably acting as a matross (gunner).

For her heroic role, General Washington himself issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. Thereafter, she was widely hailed as “Sergeant Molly.” A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A sculpture on the battle monument commemorates her courageous deed.

Fort Sill History

Burr Tillstrom was born on October 13, 1917. He was a puppeteer, creator of Kukla, Ollie and a passel of other characters who interacted with actress Fran Allison in the early days of television. Kukla, Fran and Ollie began in Chicago and then was on NBC each evening Monday through Friday, shortened to 15 minutes, then made weekly, but lasting until 1957. Early on the show won a Peabody Award for, “whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort.” Time said KFO, “flourished in this desert as an oasis of intelligent fantasy.”

Kukla, Fran and Ollie was the first children’s show to be equally popular with children and adults. The show’s immense popularity stemmed from its simplicity, gentle fun and frolic and adult wit. Burr Tillstrom’s Kuklapolitan Players differed from typical puppets in that the humor derived from satire and sophisticated wit rather than slapstick comedy. At the height of the show’s popularity, the cast received 15,000 letters a day, and its ratings were comparable to shows featuring Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan.

The basic format of the show was simple: Fran Allison stood in front of a small stage and interacted with the characters. The format was derived from the puppet act Tillstrom performed for the RCA Victor exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

That’s Tillstrom with his stars.

Art Tatum was born on October 13th in 1909.

It’s hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum’s piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, “I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.”

NPR : Art Tatum

Leonard Alfred Schneider was born on this date in 1925. We know him as Lenny Bruce.

On April 1, 1964, four New York City vice squad officers attended Bruce’s performance at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. The officers arrested Bruce and owner Howard Solomon following Bruce’s 10:00 P.M. show. Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh presented a grand jury with a typed partial script of Bruce’s performance including references to Jackie Kennedy trying to “save her ass” after her husband’s assassination, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “nice tits,” sexual intimacy with a chicken, “pissing in the sink,” the Lone Ranger sodomizing Tonto, and St. Paul giving up “fucking” for Lent. The jury indicted Bruce on the obscenity charge. The trial before a three-judge court in New York City that followed stands as a remarkable moment in the history of free speech. Both the prosecution and defense presented parades of well-known witnesses to either denounce Bruce’s performance as the worst sort of gutter humor or celebrate it as a powerful and insightful social commentary. Among the witnesses testifying in support of Bruce were What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, sociologist Herbert Gans, and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. In the end, the censors won. Voting 2 to 1, the court found Bruce guilty of violating New York’s obscenity laws and sentenced him to “four months in the workhouse.”

Famous Trials: The Lenny Bruce Trial

Bruce died of a drug overdose in 1966.

Today is the birthday

… of Elmore Leonard. He’s 86. Elmore Leonard’s western stories are as good if not better than his detective novels.

… of Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates. He’s 65.

… of former 49ers Hall of Fame QB Steve Young. He’s 50. Young was the first left-handed quarterback inducted into the Hall. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, whose eponymous university he attended.

… of Joan Cusack. The actress is 49. She’s been nominated for the best actress in a supporting role Oscar twice, Working Girl and In & Out.

… of Michelle Wie, 22.

If they rated first ladies like they rate the presidents, the one who would surely be at the top, Eleanor Roosevelt, was born on this date in 1884. (She died in 1962.) The following is excerpted from the White House Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt:

A 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.”

Betty Noyes was born on this date in 1912. You probably don’t know her, but you must know her voice. She sang the Debby Reynolds songs in Singin’ in the Rain.

Harlan Fiske Stone was born on October 11th in 1872. He was Attorney General under President Coolidge, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court 1925-1941, and Chief Justice 1941-1946.

Jean-Baptiste Lamy was born in Lempdes, Puy de Dôme, in France on this date in 1814. He came to Santa Fe as bishop in 1850. Among other things he was responsible for the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, and was buried under its floor 1888. (Lamy was succeeded by Jean-Baptiste Salpointe, from the same area in France and for whom my high school in Tucson was named.) Lamy was the subject of Willa Cather’s novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop.

October 10th is the 283rd day of 2011. How you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions?

Thelonious Monk was born on this date in 1917.

Thelonious Monk, who was criticized by observers who failed to listen to his music on its own terms, suffered through a decade of neglect before he was suddenly acclaimed as a genius; his music had not changed one bit in the interim. In fact, one of the more remarkable aspects of Monk’s music was that it was fully formed by 1947 and he saw no need to alter his playing or compositional style in the slightest during the next 25 years.

All Music

A must-have jazz album is Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall. The tape had been lost for decades.

Monk died in 1982.

October 10th is the birthday

… of Peter Coyote, the actor. He’s 70. Coyote does a lot of voice-over and narration. He’s the one that sounds a lot like Henry Fonda. He’s appeared in more than 100 films and television shows (including recently in “Commander in Chief”), though he began acting only at age 39. He tested for the part of Indiana Jones.

… of actor Ben Vereen, 65.

… of singer John Prine, 65.

… of David Lee Roth of Van Halen, 57.

… of Tanya Tucker, 53.

… of Bradley Whitford. He’s 52.

… of Brett Favre. He’s 42.

… of Dale Earnhardt Jr. He’s 37.

… of Tulo. Troy Tulowitzki is 27.

Novelist and screenwriter James Clavell was born in Sydney, Australia, on this date in 1924; he died in 1994. Among Clavell’s films, The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love. His most famous novels are King Rat and Shōgun.

Helen Hayes was born on October 10th in 1900. Hayes won two acting Oscars — leading in 1932 and supporting 39 years later in 1971.

Long regarded as “the First Lady of American Theater,” Helen Hayes earned international esteem and affection during a career that spanned more than eighty years on stage and in films, radio, and television. As a screen actor she won two Oscars, as a stage actor she won a prestigious Drama League of New York award, and in 1988 President Ronald Reagan presented her with the National Medal of Arts. Deeply in love with her profession, Hayes enjoyed playing a variety of roles, from Amanda Wingfield in Tennesse Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie” (1948) to a little old lady stowaway in AIRPORT (1970). Both the charm of her comic roles and the depth of her tragic ones made Hayes one of the most respected and beloved American actors.

American Masters

Robert Gould Shaw, the Union officer commanding the 54th Regiment, portrayed in the movie Glory by Matthew Broderick, was born on October 10th in 1837. He died leading an attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in 1863.

It’s the birthday

… of Maya Lin. The designer of the Vietnam Memorial is 52.

… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 89.

… of comedian Bill Dana, born William Szathmary 87 years ago today. He was once a famed astronaut, José Jiménez.

… of Steve Miller. Miller was encouraged as a child by family friend Les Paul. Fly Like an Eagle today Steve, you’re 68.

… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 61. A great book.

… of Diane Cilento. Ms. Cilento received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Tom Jones, but NewMexiKen liked her best as the spicy, outspoken passenger in Hombre (with Paul Newman in photo). Diane Cilento was married to Sean Connery 1962-1973. She’s 78 today.

… of Bill James, 62.

… of Karen Allen, 60.

… of Bob Geldof. He’s 60.

… of Michael Andretti, 49.

… of Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy. They’re 46.

… of Grant Hill. He’s 39.

… of Kate Winslet. The actress is 36. She’s been nominated for the best leading actress Oscar four times and the best supporting actress Oscar twice. She won for The Reader in 2009.

… of actor Donald Pleasence, born in 1919. Pleasance was in a lot of films, but I liked him best as Colin Blythe, “The Forger,” in The Great Escape.

… of Allen Ludden, born in 1917, host of Password and Mr. Betty White from 1963 until he died in 1981.

… of Larry Fine, born 109 years ago today. You know, the Larry of Larry, Curly and Moe.

… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on October 5th 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

Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, was born on October 5th in 1829. Arthur became president when Garfield was assassinated.

And it’s the birthday of my mother, born in Laredo, Texas, 86 years ago today. Dad always called Mom “Peter Pan,” never wanting to grow up. And she didn’t; she died at 48.

Today is the birthday

… of Gothic author Anne Rice, 70. She is said to have sold 100 million books. Excerpt from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor from last year:

[B]orn Howard Allen O’Brien in New Orleans (1941). Her parents were Irish Catholics, and also free spirits, and they thought it would be great fun to name their daughter after her father, whose name was Howard. But she hated it so much that she changed her name to Anne when she was in first grade.

Anne was one of four girls, and she said that they were all a little weird, grew up isolated and strange like the Brontë sisters. They created fantasy worlds and made up horror stories together, and they liked to wander through cemeteries for fun. And while they walked through the streets of New Orleans, past falling-down mansions, their mom would tell them stories of horrible things that had happened inside. Even though Anne was fascinated by ghosts and violence, she was also a devout Catholic, so devout that she wanted to be a nun for a while. But when she was 14, her mother died from alcoholism, and her dad moved the family to Texas. Here Anne became a normal teenager, had friends, and edited her school’s paper. She gave up Catholicism, inspired by the defiance of 1960s counterculture. She went to college and ended up marrying her high school sweetheart.

… of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, 67. LaRussa is the third winningest manager in baseball history, behind Connie Mack and John McGraw. He has managed 5,097 games.

… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 65 today.

… of Admiral Michael Mullen, 65. Mullen was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 until last Friday.

… of director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Maggie and Jake’s dad is 62 today.

… of Alicia Silverstone, probably not as clueless at 35.

John Charles Carter was born on October 4, 1923. As Charlton Heston he won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.

It’s 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.

American Masters | PBS

Damon Runyan, the author of Guys and Dolls, from which the movie came, was born on October 4th in 1880. “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong — but that is the way to bet.” The Writer’s Almanac has more.

Frederic Remington was born on October 4th in 1861.

With his dynamic representations of cowboys and cavalrymen, bronco busters and braves, 19th-century artist Frederic Remington created a mythic image of the American West that continues to inspire America today. His technical ability to reproduce the physical beauty of the Western landscape made him a sought-after illustrator, but it was his insight into the heroic nature of American settlers that made him great. This painter, sculptor, author, and illustrator, who was so often identified with the American West, surprisingly spent most of his life in the East. More than anything, in fact, it was Remington’s connection with the eastern fantasy of the West, and not a true knowledge of its history and people, that his admirers responded to.

American Masters | PBS

Photo of sculpture from Amon Carter Museum.

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.

The Space Age began 54 years ago today with the launch of Sputnik (Cпутник) by the Soviet Union. The word means companion or satellite in Russian.

Gore Vidal is 86 today.

Steve Reich is 75. Let this paragraph from Alex Ross in The New Yorker explain Reich’s compostitions:

In this sense, “Different Trains,” for recorded voices and string quartet, may be Reich’s most staggering achievement, even if “Music for 18” gives the purest pleasure. He wrote the piece in 1988, after recalling cross-country train trips that he had taken as a child. “As a Jew, if I had been in Europe during this period, I would have had to ride very different trains,” he has said. Recordings of his nanny reminiscing about their journeys and of an elderly man named Lawrence Davis recalling his career as a Pullman porter are juxtaposed with the testimonies of three Holocaust survivors. These voices give a picture of the dividedness of twentieth-century experience, of the irreconcilability of American idyll and European horror—and something in Mr. Davis’s weary voice also reminds us that America was never an idyll for all. The hidden melodies of the spoken material generate string writing that is rich in fragmentary modal tunes and gently pulsing rhythms.

The NPR 100 included Reich’s “Drumming” among its “100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.”

Ernest Evans is 70; that’s Chubby Checker. His version of “The Twist” was number one in both 1960 and 1962, though not at my high school where the Carmelite fathers decreed it too impure.

My daddy is sleepin’ and mama ain’t around
Yeah daddy is sleepin’ and
mama ain’t around
We’re gonna twisty twisty twisty
‘Til we turn the house down

Senator Jeff Bingaman is 68 today.

Roy is 67.

Siegfried & Roy met in 1957. Siegfried took a job on an ocean liner, first working as a steward. Roy got a job on the same ship as a waiter. While working one night, Roy heard people applauding and looked over to see Siegfried on a makeshift stage, taking a rabbit out of a hat. The two young men became friends and Roy began to serve as Siegfried’s assistant.

One night Siegfried asked Roy what he thought of the show. Roy got up the nerve to tell Siegfried that he found the magic a little too predictable. Astounded at Roy’s candor, especially considering he was five years Siegfried’s junior, Siegfried asked him how the show might be made better. “If you can make a rabbit and a dove appear and disappear, can you do the same with a cheetah?” Roy inquired. “In magic, anything is possible,” Siegfried responded.

As fate would have it, Roy had smuggled Chico the cheetah onboard, liberating him from the zoo. So Siegfried & Roy began to develop the magic that would become their trademark. Though the next five years were tough, traveling around Europe, playing small, unsophisticated clubs for little pay, they refused to become discouraged. Instead they focused on their magic and presentation.

A Magical Partnership

Lindsey Buckingham is 62.

Keb’ Mo’ (Kevin Moore) is 60.

Dave Winfield is 60.

A true five-tool athlete who never spent a day in the Minor Leagues, Dave Winfield played 22 seasons, earning 12 All-Star Game selections. At 6-foot-6, he was an imposing figure and a durable strongman with the rare ability to combine power and consistency. In tours of duty with six Major League teams, Winfield batted .283, hit 465 home runs and amassed 3,110 hits. He was a seven-time Gold Glove winner and helped lead the Toronto Blue Jays to their first World Championship in 1992.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Dennis Eckersley is 57.

Dennis Eckersley blazed a unique path to Hall of Fame success. During the first half of his 24-year big league career, Eck won over 150 games primarily as a starter, including a no-hitter in 1977. Over his final 12 years, he saved nearly 400 games, leading his hometown Oakland A’s to four American League West titles and earning both Cy Young and MVP honors in 1992. The only pitcher with 100 saves and 100 complete games, Eckersley dominated opposing batters during a six-year stretch from 1988-93, in which he struck out 458 while walking just 51.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Al Sharpton is 57.

Stevie Ray Vaughan would have been 57 today. He died in 1990.

Janel Moloney of The West Wing is 42.

Gwen Stefani is 42, neither “Hollaback” nor “Girl.”

A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl

(A hollaback girl is a girl who lets boys do whatever, then waits for them to call, to holler back. Originally it meant a cheerleader who echoed the lead cheerleader’s call. The song uses both meanings well.)

Emily Post was born on October 3rd in 1873, thank you very much.

She taught as the basis of all correct deportment that “no one should do anything that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others.” Thousands found their social problems solved by her simple counsels. Her name became synonymous with good manners.

Mrs. Post’s advice was varied. She gave suggestions about how to inculcate good manners in an active 7-year-old boy and she could and did answer complicated questions about the proper way to address titled persons of Europe.

But for the most part she advised the debutante, the confused suitor and the newly married couple who wished to establish themselves in good relations with the world about them. She always avoided giving lonelyhearts advice and never suggested ways to capture a husband or wife, although many young persons found courtship easier because of what she said.

The New York Times

George Bancroft was born on October 3, 1800. As Secretary of the Navy, Bancroft initiated the creation of the United States Naval Academy in 1846. A historian even more than a politician, Bancroft wrote one of the first great histories of the U.S., the multi-volume History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

John Ross was born on October 3, 1790.

John Ross, a man with the legend touch, walked tall upon the earth and cast a long shadow.  He set a precedent in democratic political history that will never be broken.  By free ballot, he was elected to ten successive terms of four years each as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

He died in office as chief executive of a government fashioned after that of the United States of America.
Intellectually, he was the greatest chief in the history of the Cherokee people.

. . .

John Ross stood so high in the eyes of his people that they called him Guwisguwi, the name of a rare migratory bird of large size and white or grayish plumage that had one time appeared at long intervals in the old Cherokee country.

He was only one-eighth Cherokee and seven-eighths Scot.  He was as much a Scotsman as his great opponent, Andrew Jackson, and fought just as tenaciously.  But he was forever Cherokee-minded.

Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee

Angie Dickinson is 80 today. Chances are Johnny Mathis is 76.

But here’s the scary one. Greg Brady (Barry Williams) is 57.

Dharma (Jenna Elfman) is 40.

Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard is 36; T-Pain is 26.

It’s the birthday of Jerry Lee Lewis (1935), Stanley Berenstain (1923) and Gene Autry (1907). You work if you want to, but I’m outta here for the holiday.

Robert Blake is 78 today.

Frankie Avalon is 71. (Annette will be 69 next month.)

Otis Sistrunk is 65. He played for the Oakland Raiders, 1972-1978. From Wikipedia:

During a Monday Night Football telecast, a television camera beamed a sideline shot of the 6’5″, 265-pound Sistrunk’s steaming bald head to the nation. That, along with his lack of a college education resulting in the team program listing Sistrunk’s academic background as “U.S. Mars” (short for U.S. Marines), prompted ABC commentator and ex-NFL player Alex Karras to suggest that the extraterrestrial-looking Sistrunk’s alma mater was the “University of Mars.”

Coach Rick Pitino is 59.

Baseball hall-of-famer Ryne Sandberg is 52.

Dazzling defensive flair and a tremendous knack for power enabled Ryne Sandberg to join the list of greats at second base. As the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1984, Sandberg led the Chicago Cubs to their first postseason appearance since 1945. His amazing range and strong, accurate throwing arm, led to nine consecutive Gold Glove Awards at the keystone position, and helped him pace NL second basemen in assists seven times, and in fielding average and total chances four times each. With the bat, Sandberg launched 282 career home runs, and in 1990 he become the first second baseman since Rogers Hornsby in 1922 to hit 40 homers in a single-season.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

James Gandolfini is 50.

Jada Pinkett Smith is 40.

Lance Armstrong is 40 today, too. Or so he says.

Greta Garbo was born on September 18, 1905. This is from her New York Times obituary in 1990:

The finest element in a Garbo film was Garbo. She invariably played a disillusioned woman of the world who falls hopelessly and giddily in love. Tragedy is often imminent, and her tarnished-lady roles usually required her to die or otherwise give up her lover. No one could suffer like Garbo.

Mysterious and aloof, she appealed to both men and women, and she exerted a major influence on women’s fashions, hair styles and makeup. On screen and off, she was a remote figure of loveliness.

Garbo’s career spanned only 19 years. In 1941, at the age of 36, she made the last of her 27 movies, a slight comedy called ”Two Faced Woman.” She went into what was to be temporary retirement, but she never returned to the screen.

Actor Jack Warden was born on this date in 1920. Warden was nominated twice for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar — for Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait. NewMexiKen liked him best as juror # 7 in 12 Angry Men.

The first edition of The New York Times was published 160 years ago today (1851).

President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol on September 18 in 1793.

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 1899. 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 71 today.

Davenie Johanna Heatherton was born 67 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 64 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 51 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 50 today.

Amy Winehouse did not make it to 28.

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 101 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 270 years ago today.

In the British American Colonies it was September 2nd 259 years ago yesterday and September 14th 259 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 Writer’s Almanac had a good telling of the tale last year.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 103 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.

Antonia Fraser is 79

William Least Heat-Moon was born as William Trogdon 72 years ago today. He’s the author, among other works, of Blue Highways, an excellent travel memoir published in 1982. (The roads in blue on highway maps go to the out-of-way places Least Heat-Moon wrote about.)

Daryl Dragon, the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, is 69 today.

Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 68. According to IMDb, “At nine years of age she suffered a nervous breakdown, at ten she started heavy drinking. One year later she began to have affairs, and at the age of twelve she tried to commit suicide.” Weld turned down the role of Lolita and of Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde.

Herbert Streicher is 64 today. As Harry Reems, he was the unnoticed star of Deep Throat.

Texas football coach Mack Brown is 60. Pre-Snap Read has the Longhorns 18th going to next week’s season-opener.

Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee Herman, is 59.

Downtown Julie Brown is 52.

Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 42.

Jim Thome, now of the Cleveland Indians, is 41. 601 home runs.

Lester Young was born 102 years ago today. If you don’t know who Lester Young was, you really should. He was called the “Prez” (for President of Jazz).

Sweetness is what Young was all about. When he started to gain attention, the dominant style of the day was the aggressive, hard-driving saxophone of Coleman Hawkins. But Young played in the upper range of his tenor in a lyrical, relaxed style.

“He had marvelous sensitivity and taste,” says Dan Morgenstern, who wrote the book Living in Jazz. “Never played a tasteless note in his life.”

Morgenstern, who met Young in 1958, says the saxophonist always told a story in his solos, in an original way.

“He had this ‘floating’ style, where he would kind of float above the rhythm. He was like an acrobat,” Morgenstern says. “And, you know, at the same time, his melodic imagination was so marvelous. The combination of rhythm and melody — nobody else quite ever had that.”

Young was an original in other ways. Rather than holding his saxophone vertically, he held it high and to the right at a 45-degree angle. He famously wore a porkpie hat and moccasins. Young also had a flair for language: He said he had “big eyes” for the things he liked, he nicknamed Billie Holiday “Lady Day,” and he called women’s feet in open-toed shoes “nice biscuits.” He also made up new words that found their way into songs.

Young’s cachet among hipsters led to his popularizing now-common words. Everyone started using the word “cool” after they heard him say it, according to jazz historian Phil Schaap.

“But the one that really makes the most sense,” Schaap says, “you call up Lester Young for a gig, he’d say, ‘Okay, how does the bread smell?’ So he used ‘bread’ for money for the first time.”

Lester Young: ‘The Prez’ Still Rules At 100 : NPR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ogRiaWXaU

Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash 21 years ago today.

Kenny Rogers is 73 today. Probably time enough for countin’.

Patty McCormack is 66. The actress, known now as Patricia McCormack, was nominated for the supporting actress Oscar as an 11-year-old for her performance in The Bad Seed.

The only two-time Heisman Trophy winner, Archie Griffin is 57 today.

Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City is 55.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, is 38 today.

The world’s fastest human, Usain Bolt, is 25.

Hayden Panettiere of Heroes is 22.

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

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

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

Wilt Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia 75 years ago today. Usually called “The Stilt” because it rhymed with Wilt, Chamberlain actually preferred the nickname “The Big Dipper.” He named his Bel Air house Ursa Major.

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

Chamberlain died in 1999.

Two of the top sportscasters of a previous generation were born on August 21, 1924 — Jack Buck and Chris Schenkel. Buck died in 2002 and Schenkel in 2005.

“Gibson…swings and a fly ball to deep right field. This is gonna be a home run! UNBELIEVABLE! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won the game, five to four; I don’t believe what I just saw! I don’t BELIEVE what I just saw!” — Jack Buck, 1988 World Series.

Schenkel was the host on ABC for the 1972 Munich Olympics. Everyone remembers Jim McKay reporting the terrorist attack, but that’s because McKay filled in for Schenkel, who was asleep after doing the 2AM-5AM German time live coverage for the U.S. Schenkel covered the Professional Bowlers’ Tour for 36 years.

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

On this date in 1831 a 30-year-old black slave named Nat Turner, supported by about 60 followers armed with guns, clubs, axes and swords, launched the bloodiest slave revolt in American history.