NewMexiKen

Today is the birthday

. . . of Ravi Shankar. Norah Jones’ father is 90. That’s Ravi last month with daughter Anoushka Shankar. Click the link. The music is lovely.

Shankar is not one-dimensional. Apart from pursuing a career as a classical performer, he has also experimented outside this field. For this reason he has attracted criticism from purists. Some of this, especially during the Beatles era, undoubtedly had an element of jealousy to it; some was certainly warranted, because Shankar did take many chances. In fact, that was one of the things that kept his music exciting. To use a cricketing image — baseball would be wholly inappropriate — Shankar’s batting average has remained high throughout a long and illustrious career.

allmusic

. . . of Hendley “The Scrounger,” Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford. That’s James Garner, 82 today.

. . . of Trapper. Wayne Rogers is 77.

. . . of Governor Moonbeam. Jerry Brown is 72.

. . . of Francis Ford Coppola. The Oscar-winning writer and director is 71. Coppola has been nominated 14 times overall, winning five, three for writing (Patton, Godfather and Godfather II). He won the best director and best picture Oscars for Godfather II.

. . . of David Frost. The journalist, television celebrity is 71.

. . . of Russell Crowe. The 3-time best actor Oscar nominee is 46. He won for Gladiator.

. . . of Tiki and Ronde. The Barber brothers are 70 today.

Eleanora Fagan was born on this date in 1915. We know her as Billie Holiday.

Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer, except the two who inspired her, Louis Armstrong and the late Bessie Smith.

Miss Holiday became a singer more from desperation than desire. She was named Eleanora Fagan after her birth in Baltimore. She was the daughter of a 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, and a 15-year-old father who were married three years after she was born.

The first and major influence on her singing came when as a child she ran errands for the girls in a near-by brothel in return for the privilege of listening to recordings by Mr. Armstrong and Miss Smith.
. . .

At Jerry Preston’s Log Cabin, a night club, she asked for work as a dancer. She danced the only step she knew for fifteen choruses and was turned down. The pianist, taking pity on her, asked if she could sing. She brashly assured him that she could. She sang “Trav’lin’ All Alone” and then “Body and Soul” and got a job–$2 a night for six nights a week working from midnight until about 3 o’clock the next afternoon.

Miss Holiday had been singing in Harlem in this fashion for a year or two when she was heard by John Hammond, a jazz enthusiast, who recommended her to Benny Goodman, at that time a relatively unknown clarinet player who was the leader on occasional recording sessions.

She made her first recording, “Your Mother’s Son-in-Law” in November, 1933, singing one nervous chorus with a band that included in addition to Mr. Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan.

Two years later Miss Holiday started a series of recordings with groups led by Teddy Wilson, the pianist, which established her reputation in the jazz world. On many of these recordings the accompanying musicians were members of Count Basie’s band, a group with which she felt a special affinity. She was particularly close to Mr. Basie’s tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young.

It was Mr. Young who gave her the nickname by which she was known in jazz circles–Lady Day. She in turn created the name by which Mr. Young was identified by jazz bands, “Pres.” She was the vocalist with the Basie band for a brief time during 1937 and the next year she signed for several months with Artie Shaw’s band.

The New York Times (1959)

Billie Holiday, Francis Ford Coppola and James Garner — it ought to be a national holiday.

Today is the birthday

… of Andre Previn. The composer-conducter and 13-time Oscar nominee — he won for Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma la Douce and My Fair Lady — is 81. Previn was married to Mia Farrow for most of the 1970s. They had three children and adopted three more.

… of Merle Haggard. The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee is 73.

Haggard has recorded more than 600 songs, about 250 of them his own compositions. (He often shares writing credits as gestures of financial and personal largess.) He has had thirty-eight #1 songs, and his “Today I Started Loving You Again” (Capitol, 1968) has been recorded by nearly 400 other artists.

In addition, Haggard is an accomplished instrumentalist, playing a commendable fiddle and a to-be-reckoned-with lead guitar. He and the Strangers played for Richard Nixon at the White House in 1973, at a barbecue on the Reagan ranch in 1982, at Washington’s Kennedy Center, and 60,000 miles from earth—courtesy of astronaut Charles Duke, who brought a tape aboard Apollo 16 in 1972. Haggard has won numerous CMA and ACM Awards including both organizations’ 1970 Entertainer of the Year awards, been nominated for scores of others, was elected to the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1977, and won Country Music Hall of Fame membership in 1994. In 1984 he won a Grammy in the Best Country Vocal Performance, Male category for “That’s the Way Love Goes.”

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

… of Billy Dee Williams. Lando Calrissian is 73. Williams played Gale Sayers in the classic 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song.

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

… of Barry Levinson. The six-time Oscar nominee (writing, directing) won for best director for Rain Man. He’s 68.

… of John Ratzenberger. Best known as Cliff Clavin the mailman on Cheers, Ratzenberger is also the voice of Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story movies and Yeti in Monsters, Inc. Ratzenberger is 63.

… of Jason Hervey. Wayne Arnold of “The Wonder Years” is 38.

… of Zach Braff of Scrubs. He’s 35 today.

Oscar-winner and four-time nominee Walter Huston was born on this date in 1884. Huston won Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of the great performances. Walter was the father of John and grandfather of Anjelica.

Today is the birthday

. . . of Gale Storm. My Little Margie is 88. That TV series ran 1952-1955. Storm’s real name was neither Gale, nor Margie (nor Susanna Pomeroy). It was Josephine Cottle.

… of Roger Corman. The filmmaker is 84 today.

. . . of Colin Powell. He’s 73. As NewMexiKen exited my office in 2001, I nearly ran into Secretary Powell and Condoleezza Rice walking down the hall after leaving one of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force meetings. Powell is one of eight Secretaries of State that I’ve met or seen, but the only one I almost knocked down.

. . . of Michael Moriarty. He’s 69. Moriarty has won three Emmy awards, but none for playing Ben Stone in Law and Order despite five nominations. NewMexiKen liked Moriarty best as Henry “Author” Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly (with Robert De Niro). The IMDB mini biography for Moriarty says he’s 6-feet-4. Interestingly, the mini biography was written by Michael Moriarty.

Booker T. Washington was born on this date in 1856.

An incident of Dr. Washington’s life that stirred up a controversy throughout the country was the occasion of his dining at the White House with President Roosevelt on Oct. 16, 1901. Dr. Washington went to the White House at the invitation of the President, and, when the news was spread abroad, thousands, both North and South, who were moved by race prejudice or by a belief that social equality between blacks and whites had been encouraged, became angry. Most of the criticism fell upon Colonel Roosevelt, but the incident served also to injure Dr. Washington’s work in some parts of the South.

The New York Times

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

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

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

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

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