NewMexiKen

It’s Robin Wright’s birthday. She’s 48 today.

Seymour Hersh is 77.

John Havlicek is 74.

While aptly described as soft-spoken and modest, John Havlicek is regarded as the best sixth man in NBA history. “Hondo” who popularized the integral role of the sixth man, was a collegiate star at Ohio State. An All-America and All-Big Ten selection in 1962, Hondo teamed with Larry Siegfried and fellow Hall of Famers Jerry Lucas and Bob Knight to land Ohio State the 1960 NCAA Championship. Havlicek combined his running ability and endurance to establish a style of constant movement on offense and defense that frustrated opponents and added to the Boston Celtics’ magic. From the day he arrived in Boston, Havlicek was a scoring threat, and became the first player to score 1,000 points in sixteen consecutive seasons. During his sixteen years with the Boston Celtics, coach Red Auerbach described Havlicek as the “guts of the team.”

Basketball Hall of Fame

Barbara Kingsolver is 59.

Gladys Marie Smith was born on this date in 1892. We know her as Mary Pickford. Miss Pickford won the Oscar for best actress for Coquette. The first big female movie star, Pickford was an industry leader as well, helping found United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Jim “Catfish” Hunter was born on this date in 1946.

The bigger the game, the better he pitched. Jim “Catfish” Hunter, with his pinpoint control, epitomized smart pitching at its finest. He pitched a perfect game in 1968, won 21 or more games five times in a row, and claimed the American League Cy Young Award in 1974. Arm trouble ended his career at age 33, but he still won 224 games and five World Series rings. The likable pitching ace died in 1999 at age 53 – a victim of ALS, the same disease that cut short the life of Lou Gehrig.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Hunter died in 1999. He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Perhaps it should be renamed Lou Gehrig’s and Catfish Hunter’s disease.

Gary Carter, who died in 2012, was born on this date in 1954.

A rugged receiver and enthusiastic on-field general, Gary Carter excelled at one of baseball’s most demanding positions, as both as offensive and defensive force. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner, Carter belted 324 home runs in his 19-season major league career. “Kid” showed a knack for the big-time, twice earning All-Star Game MVP awards in his 11 selections. His clutch 10th-inning single in Game Six of the 1986 World Series sparked a dramatic Mets’ comeback victory, ultimately leading to a World Series title.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg was born on this date in 1896. One of the great lyricists, Harburg would be loved by us all if only for —

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow
Why oh why can’t I?

The Harburg Foundation provides this biographical sketch:

Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg (1896-1981) was born of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents of modest means on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He attended the City University of New York. In high school (Townsand Harris) he met his lifelong friend, Ira Gershwin and discovered that they shared a mutual love for the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Yip and Ira were frequent contributors of poetry and light verse to their high school and college papers.

The years after college found Yip slipping further away from writing and eventually into the world of business. After the electric appliance business Yip had helped develop over seven long years was decimated by the stock market crash of 1929, Yip turned his attention back full time to the art of writing lyrics. His old friend Ira Gershwin became a mentor, co-writer and promoter of Yip’s.

Mr. Harburg’s Broadway achievements included Bloomer Girl, Finnian’s Rainbow, Flahooley and Jamaica.

His most noted work in film musicals was in The Wizard of OZ for which he wrote lyrics, was the final editor and contributed much to the script (including the scene at the end where the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are rewarded for their efforts by the Wizard). He also wrote lyrics for the Warner Brothers movie, Gay Purr-ee.

Yip was “blacklisted” during the 50’s by film, radio and television for his liberal views.

In all, Yip wrote lyrics to 537 songs including; “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”, “April In Paris”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “Hurry Sundown”, “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, “How Are Things In Glocca Mora” and of course his most famous… “Over the Rainbow”.

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 85. 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 77.

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 77: “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.” Williams played Gale Sayers in the classic 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song.

… of Barry Levinson. The six-time Oscar nominee (writing, directing) won for best director for Rain Man. Other films: Diner, The Natural, Good Morning, Vietnam, Bugsy. He’s 72.

… 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 67.

… of Jason Hervey. Wayne Arnold of “The Wonder Years” is 42.

… of Zach Braff of Scrubs. He’s 39 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 Colin Powell. He’s 77. As I exited my office in 2001, I nearly ran into Secretary Powell and National Security Advisor 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 over.

… of Michael Moriarty, born in Detroit 73 years ago today. 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).

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.

Virgil “Gus” Grissom was born on this date in 1926. Grissom was the second American in space, a July 1961 suborbital flight that followed Alan Shepard’s similar flight and preceded John Glenn’s orbiting the earth in 1962. Grissom’s spacecraft sank upon landing, but after years of analysis, experts conceded it had not been due to any action or failure on Grissom’s part. Grissom flew in the first manned Gemini flight in 1965 — he was the first American to fly into space twice. He named the craft Molly Brown (as in unsinkable). When NASA objected, he renamed it Titanic. NASA relented but never used the name and stopped naming spacecraft for a time. Grissom died in the Apollo I fire in 1967.

… was born in Cincinnati 92 or 90 years ago today depending on your source. (She claimed 1924, but records indicate 1922.) Her grandparents on both sides were German immigrants.

We know her better as Doris Day.

Today is the birthday

… of Leon Russell. He’s 72.

Leon Russell has been called a rock and roll Renaissance man, and indeed there is little that this Oklahoma-bred singer-pianist hasn’t done. His quixotic half-century in music stretches from his teen years in Oklahoma in the late Fifties to his best-selling collaboration with Elton John from 2010, The Union. Between his solo work, contributions to high-profile albums by other artists, and screen exposure in the Bangla Desh and Mad Dogs & Englishmen documentaries, Russell became a veritable superstar in the Seventies.

For someone as celebrated as a solo artist and live performer as Russell, it might be surprising to learn that he spent his first decade working behind the scenes. As an in-demand session musician in Los Angeles during the Sixties, Russell played on countless records, including many of Phil Spector’s productions and hits by the Byrds, Paul Revere & the Raiders, and Gary Lewis & the Playboys. He also played piano in the house band for Shindig! ABC-TV’s weekly rock and roll show.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of jazz-rock guitarist of Larry Coryell. He’s 71.

… of Linda Hunt. The actress won an Oscar for playing a man in The Year of Living Dangerously. She did not play a woman posing as a man, like Barbra Streisand in Yentl. She actually played a male part. Ms. Hunt is 69 today. NewMexiKen liked Hunt particularly as the barkeep/saloon-owner in Silverardo. She is 4-foot-9.

… of baseball hall-of-famer Don Sutton. He, too, is 69 today.

A model of consistency and durability throughout his 23-year Major League career, Don Sutton won 324 games and struck out 3,574 batters, while never missing his turn in the pitching rotation for the Dodgers, Astros, Brewers, Athletics and Angels. A four-time All-Star, he reached double figures in wins in 21 of his 23 seasons and struck out over 100 batters in each of his first 21 campaigns. He pitched in four World Series and posted five career one-hit games.

Baseball Hall of Fame

… of Emmylou Harris. She’s 67 today.

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

allmusic

… of SVU Detective Elliot Stabler. Actor Christopher Meloni is 53.

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

Walter Chrysler was born on this date in 1875.

After a successful career in the railroad industry that began as a sweeper, then a skilled machinist and finally the plant manager of the American Locomotive Company, Chrysler switched gears to enter the auto industry as the plant manager for Buick. After rising to the presidency of Buick, Chrysler moved to Willys-Overland in 1920, reorganizing and saving the company. While still at Willys-Overland, Chrysler was recruited to salvage the foundering Maxwell-Chalmers Company. After taking control of Maxwell’s assets and liabilities in June 1925, Chrysler became president of the company that bore his name, as did the automobiles manufactured by it. He remained as president until 1935, and served as chairman until his death in 1940.

Walter P. Chrysler Museum

In 1928 Chrysler was Time’s second-ever Person of the Year, following Lindbergh.

Astronaut Jim Lovell (the Apollo 13 commander) is 86 today.

Gloria Steinem is 80..

Elton John is 67.

Sarah Jessica Parker is 49.

Three of the above — but not Elton — were born in Ohio.