NewMexiKen

Keith Jackson is 79 today. Whoa, Nellie.

Football hall-of-famer Mike Ditka is 68.

Pam Dawber, Mork’s Mindy, and Mrs. Mark Harmon for 20 years, is 56.

Martina Navratilova is 51.

Joanie Cunningham is 47. That’s Erin Moran.

Wynton Marsalis is 46.

And, as already noted, roll over Beethoven, Charles Edward Anderson Berry is 81 today.

Young Frankenstein’s monster himself, Peter Boyle, who died last December, would have been 72 today.

… today would be a holiday.

It’s Chuck Berry’s birthday. He’s 81.

Arthur Miller, the playwright (The Crucible, Death of a Salesman) and one-time husband of Marilyn Monroe, was born on this date in 1915.

n the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken.

American Masters

Rita Hayworth was born on this date in 1918.

Montgomery Clift was born on October 17 in 1920. Clift was nominated for the best actor Oscar three times and supporting actor once. He played Prewitt, the bugler who won’t box, in From Here to Eternity.

It’s also the birthday

… of Jimmy Breslin. The columnist is 77.

… of Evel Knievel. The daredevil is 69.

… of Margot Kidder. Lois Lane is 59.

… of George Wendt. Norm is 59.

Sam: What’ll you have Normie?
Norm: Well, I’m in a gambling mood Sammy. I’ll take a glass of whatever comes out of that tap.
Sam: Looks like beer, Norm.
Norm: Call me Mister Lucky.

… of country singer Alan Jackson; he’s 49.

… of golfer Ernie Els; 38.

And of Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. He’s 35.

Today is the birthday

… of Lee Iacocca. The former Ford executive and Chrysler chairman is back on television in ads at 83.

… of Barry McGuire. The rock/folk singer is 72. NewMexiKen suspects the “Eve of Destruction” is even closer at hand.

… of Linda Lavin. Television’s “Alice” is 70.

… of Penny Marshall. The actress turned director is 65.

… of Jim Palmer. The baseball hall-of-famer is 62. We don’t see him in those underwear ads as often anymore. Palmer won World Series games in three decades (1966, 1970 and 1971, 1983).

… of Richard Carpenter. Karen’s brother is 61.

… of Emeril Lagasse. The TV chef is 48.

… of Sarah Ferguson. She’s 48.

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith was born 99 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 90 years ago today. By the time of his death last February 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

Seems pertinent enough today.

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.