NewMexiKen

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire, Jerry Lee Lewis is 74 today.

Jerry Lee Lewis is the wild man of rock and roll, embodying its most reckless and high-spirited impulses. On such piano-pounding rockers from the late Fifties as “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” Lewis combined a ferocious, boogie-style instrumental style with rowdy, uninhibited vocals.
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Through a life marked by controversy and personal tragedy, Lewis has remained a defiant and indefatigable figure who refuses to be contained by politesse or pigeonholes. As he declared from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in 1973, “I am a rock and rollin’, country & western, rhythm & blues singing [expletive deleted]!”

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Ian McShane is 67. Big party at the Gem. (McShane played that c***s**k** Al Swearengen on Deadwood.)

Bryant Gumbel is 61.

Gwen Ifill — interruption here for non sequitur question — is 54.

Gene Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on this date 102 years ago today. 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.

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome 108 years ago today.

More than any other man of his time, Enrico Fermi could properly be named “the father of the atomic bomb.”

It was his epoch-making experiments at the University of Rome in 1934 that led directly to the discovery of uranium fission, the basic principle underlying the atomic bomb as well as the atomic power plant. And eight years later, on Dec. 2, 1942, he was the leader of that famous team of scientists who lighted the first atomic fire on earth, on that gloomy squash court underneath the west stands of the University of Chicago’s abandoned football stadium.

That day has been officially recognized as the birthday of the atomic age. Man at last had succeeded in operating an atomic furnace, the energy of which came from the vast cosmic reservoir supplying the sun and the stars with their radiant heat and light–the nucleus of the atoms of which the material universe is constituted.

Enrico Fermi was the chief architect of that atomic furnace, which he named “pile,” but has since become better known as a nuclear reactor, the technical name for an atomic power plant.

Enrico Fermi Dead at 53 — New York Times

And, according to many sources, Miguel de Cervantes may have been born on this date in 1547.

In 2002, one hundred writers polled overwhelmingly chose Don Quixote as the World’s Best Work of Fiction. Votes for Cervantes’ novel came from Salman Rushdie, John le Carré, Milan Kundera, Nadine Gordimer, Carlos Fuentes, and Norman Mailer.

Dostoyevsky wrote in his diary that Don Quixote was “the saddest book ever written … the story of disillusionment.” American novelist William Faulkner reportedly read Don Quixote every year.
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When Edith Grossman published her translation of Don Quixote in October 2003, it was hailed as the “most transparent and least impeded among more than a dozen English translations going back to the 17th century.”

Grossman has translated many living Latin American authors, and has done every one of Gabriel García Márquez’s books since Love in the Time of Cholera. When García Márquez learned that Grossman was translating Cervantes, he joked to her: “I hear you’re two-timing me with Miguel.”

The Writer’s Almanac

Actor William Windom is 86. Windom continues his career; IMDb lists nearly 250 credits for him. He was the congressman in The Farmer’s Daughter and Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder She Wrote. IMDb says Windom’s kindergarten teacher was Margaret Hamilton.

Comic actor Arnold Stang is 84. Stang was a comic foil — a “second banana” — for Cantor, Benny, Allen, Berle, etc.

Brigitte Bardot is 75.

Ben K. King — “Stand by Me,” “Spanish Harlem” — is 71.

Jeffrey Jones is 63. Ed Rooney, Ferris’s nemesis. And great as A.W. Merrick, the gasbag newspaperman, on Deadwood.

Two-time Oscar nominee for writing, John Sayles is 59. He was nominated for Passion Fish and Lone Star.

Sylvia Kristel, Emmanuelle, is 57. Kristel and Ian MacShane (Deadwood’s Al Swearengen) were a couple once upon a time.

Oscar winner Mira Sorvino is 42. She won the best supporting actress award for Mighty Aphrodite.

The Valley Girl, Moon Unit Zappa is 42.

Oscar nominee Naomi Watts is 41. She was nominated for best actress in a leading role for 21 Grams.

Oscar winner for best actor, Peter Finch was born on this date in 1916. Finch won for Network, the first posthumous winner. Finch was also nominated for the best acting Oscar for Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Three time Oscar nominee for best actor, Marcello Mastroianni was born on this date in 1924. Mastroianni died in 1996.

Ed Sullivan was born on this date in 1901. This from his Times obituary in 1974.

Ed Sullivan, a rock-faced Irishman with a hot temper, painful shyness and a disdain for phonies, had been a successful and well-known part of the Broadway scene since the Twenties.

But writing a gossip column, shuttling about the fringes of the entertainment world and being master of ceremonies for a succession of variety shows never gave him what he wanted most out of life–national recognition.

He didn’t achieve that until he moved into the whirlwind world of television in 1948, and his weekly show became an essential part of Sunday evening for millions of Americans.

Between 45,000,000 and 50,000,000 persons tuned in every week to watch the show–a vaudeville-like parade of top talent that cost $8,000,000 a year to produce and for which Mr. Sullivan received $164,000 a year.

The show was worth every penny of that to its sponsors, Lincoln-Mercury automobile dealers, who made Mr. Sullivan their salesman in chief through numerous trips around the country. And he was the proudest possession of the Columbia Broadcasting System, which found he could outdraw almost any competition from the other networks.

The basis of his appeal was an ephemeral thing that baffled those who tried to analyze it. He was not witty, he had no formal talents, he could not consciously entertain anyone. He was bashful, clumsy, self-conscious, forgetful and tongue-tied. And there were times he was painfully, excruciatingly sentimental.

William S. Paley was born on that same day in 1901. This from The Museum of Broadcast Communications:

Paley’s insights helped to define commercial network operations. At the start of his CBS stewardship, he transformed the network’s financial relationship with its affiliates so that the latter agreed to carry sustaining programs free, receiving network payments only for commercially-supported programs. Paley enjoyed socializing and negotiating with broadcast stars. In the late 1940s, his “talent raids” hired top radio stars (chiefly away from NBC) by offering huge prices for rights to their programs and giving them, in return, lucrative capital gains tax options. The talent pool thus developed helped to boost CBS radio ratings just as network television was beginning. At the same time, he encouraged development of CBS News before and during the war as it developed a stable of stars soon headed by Edward R. Murrow.
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Paley is important for having assembled the brilliant team that built and expanded the CBS “Tiffany Network” image over several decades. For many years he had an innate programming touch which helped keep the network on top in annual ratings wars. He blew hot and cold on network news, helping to found and develop it, but willing to cast much of that work aside to avoid controversy or to increase profits. Like many founders, however, he stayed too long and unwittingly helped weaken his company.

Paley was very active in New York art and social circles throughout his life. He was a key figure in the Museum of Modern Art from its founding in 1929.

It is said Paley kept a pair of shoes in his office desk drawer so he could put his feet up on his desk and the soles had never touched anything but carpet. He was that fastidious.

The cartoonist Al Capp, creator of Li’l Abner, was born 100 years ago today.

Seymour Cray, the developer of the super-computer was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, on this date in 1925.

The first Cray-1™ system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 for $8.8 million. It boasted a world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second (160 megaflops) and an 8 megabyte (1 million word) main memory.

Cray Inc.

Eight whole megabytes of main memory.

Cray died 1996, the result of injuries from a collision on I-25 at North Academy Boulevard near Colorado Springs.

It’s the birthday of

… Jayne Meadows, Steve Allen’s widow. She’s 89. It was her sister Audrey Meadows that played Ralph Kramden’s wife Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show.

… Arthur Penn, 87. The director was nominated for three best direction Oscars, but never won. The three were The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde, and Alice’s Restaurant.

… Wilford Brimley. He’s 75 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.)

… Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt. He’s 60. NewMexiKen had to admire Schmidt when, during an interview, he said he “would have” used steroids if they were around when he played — whatever it took. Wrong, but refreshing candor.

… Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s 37.

… Avril Lavigne, 25.

William Conrad, one of the great voices of radio, was born on this date in 1920.

Conrad estimated that he appeared in over 7,500 roles on radio. He was regularly heard inviting listeners to “get away from it all” on CBS’ Escape. Conrad’s other radio credits include appearances on The Damon Runyon Theater, The Lux Radio Theater, Nightbeat, Fibber McGee and Molly and Suspense. For “The Wax Works,” a 1956 episode of Suspense, Conrad demonstrated his versatility by performing all the roles.

Conrad’s longest-running role was that of U.S. marshal Matt Dillon on the groundbreaking radio western Gunsmoke, which aired on CBS radio from 1952 to 1961.

When the golden age of radio was over, Conrad could be heard delivering the urgent narration for Jay Ward’s classic Bullwinkle Show. He later starred on the television series Cannon and Jake and the Fatman.

Radio Hall of Fame

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

[Adams] was a failed businessman and a not-very-effective tax collector when the British passed the Sugar Act of 1764, and Adams finally found his purpose in life. He was one of the first members of the colonies to speak out against taxation without representation and one of the first people to argue for the colonies’ independence from Great Britain. He had a genius for agitating people. He organized riots and wrote propaganda, describing the British as murderers and slave drivers. He went on to become one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and participated in the Continental Congress. It was Samuel Adams, who said, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Jonathan Chapman, born in Massachusetts on September 26, 1775, came to be known as “Johnny Appleseed.” Chapman earned his nickname because he planted small orchards and individual apple trees across 100,000 square miles of Midwestern wilderness and prairie.
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Chapman, sometimes referred to as an American St. Francis of Assisi, was an ambulant man. As a member of the first New-Church (Swedenborgian), his work resembled that of a missionary. Each year he traveled hundreds of miles on foot, wearing clothing made from sacks, and carrying a cooking pot which he is said to have worn like a cap. His travels took him through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.

Library of Congress

But here’s what makes Johnny Appleseed interesting:

MICHAEL POLLAN: It turns out Johnny Appleseed, John Chapman, was a real historical figure who played a very important role in the frontier in the Northwest territory. And I also found out that the version of Johnny Appleseed I learned in kindergarten was completely wrong, had been Disney-fied, cleaned up and made very benign. He’s a much more interesting character. The way I figured this out was I learned this one botanical fact about apples, which is, if you plant the seeds of an apple, like a red delicious or a golden delicious, the offspring will look nothing like the parent, will be a completely different variety and will be inedible. You cannot eat apples planted from seeds. They must be grafted, cloned.

GWEN IFILL: And they’re not American fruit.

MICHAEL POLLAN: They’re not, no. I learned it comes from Kazakhstan and has made its way here and changed a lot along the way. And so the fact that Johnny Appleseed was planting apples from seed, which he insisted on– he thought grafting was wicked– meant they were not edible apples, and it meant they were for hard cider because you can use any kind of apple for making cider. Really, what Johnny Appleseed was doing and the reason he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio and Indiana was he was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. He was our American Dionysus.

Online NewsHour interview for Pollan’s Botany of Desire, June 29, 2001