Today's Birthdays 3/24

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/23/09 at 11:19pm

Harry Houdini 03/24/1874 - 10/31/1926 Brother of Theo Hardeen, Husband of Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner (June 22, 1894 - October 31, 1926) his death, American magician and escape artist - 1918 & 1926 Harry Houdini

Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle 03/24/1887 - Jun 29, 1933 performer - Baby Mine (Humphrey Bogart); film's The Lizzies of Mack Sennett Mabel and Fatty Keystone Comedies with Charlie Chaplin

Richard Conte 3/24/1910 - 4/15/1975 performer - film's I?ll Cry Tomorrow, The Godfather, Hotel, A Walk in the Sun, They Came to Cordura

Gene Nelson 03/24/1920 - Sep 16, 1996 performer, director - Lend an Ear (Carol Channing); orig Follies (Dorothy Collins, Yvonne De Carlo, Alexis Smith, John McMartin Graciela Daniele, Dick Latessa, Fred Kelly); 1974 Good News; film's Oklahoma; The West Point Story; Lullaby of Broadway; The Atomic Man; The Way Out; Purple Hills; Thunder Island; dir'd. 2 of Presley's films: Harum Scarum & Kissin' Cousins

Onna [pron'd ah-na] White 03/24/1922 - 4/8/2005 choreographer, dir., performer; wife of Larry Douglas (1948 - 1959) divorced - origs Regina; Arms and the Girl; Guys & Dolls; Silk Stockings; The Music Man; Whoop-Up; Take Me Along; Irma La Douce; Let It Ride; I Had a Ball; Half a Sixpence; Mame; Ilya Darling; 1776; Gantry; 70 Girls 70; Gigi; Goodtime Charley; I Love My Wife; Working; film's Oliver

Vanessa Brown 03/24/1928 - May 21, 1999 performer - The Seven Year Itch (Tom Ewel, Neva Patterson); Watch on the Rhine

Kenneth Nelson 03/24/1930 - Oct 7, 1993 performer; orig "Matt" in "The Fantasticks" - Seventeen; Stop the World - I Want to Get Off; Half a Sixpence [replacement]; Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen (Alvin Lum, Lori Tan Chinn, David Burns); OB and film?s The Boys in the Band

Steve McQueen 3/24/1930 - 11/7/1980 performer - A Hatful of Rain [replacement]; film's The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Papillon, Towering Inferno, The Sand Pebbles, Love with the Proper Stranger, Hell is for Heroes, Bullitt, The Hunter, Le Mans, The Thomas Crown Affair

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1936 Idiot's Delight - Lunt & Fontanne

1955 - The Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opened on Broadway. The hit ran for 694 shows and won the Critics? Circle Award as the Best American Play. Burl Ives, Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara, Mildred Dunnock, Pat Hingle. Wow, do I love the excerpt with Bel Geddes & Gazzara on Broadway The Golden Age!

1992 Jake's Women

1994 Carousel with Michael Hayden, Brian d'Arcy James, Audra Ann McDonald, Shirley Verrett, Eddie Korbich, Sally Murphy, Fisher Stevens, Taye Diggs, Lovette George,

ON THIS DAY IN:

1949 Academy Awards were passed out for the 21st time: Actor/producer/director Robert Montgomery hosted the ceremony held at the AMPAS Theater in Los Angeles. Hamlet, produced by Lawrence Olivier for J. Arthur Rank-Two Cities Films, won Best Picture of 1948. Olivier also was pronounced Best Actor for his portrayal of Hamlet. The real star of the evening, however, was the Hollywood flick, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It won three Oscars, to be exact, and a nomination for Best Picture. And, as far as we know, it was the first, and remains the only time a father and son both won Academy Awards on the same night. They were presented to Walter and John Huston for their stunning work in the 1948 film. Walter was awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and his son, John, received honors for Best Director and for Best Screenplay (based on a B. Traven story). Other winners of the treasured golden statuette on this spring night were: Jane Wyman (the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan) for Best Actress (film: Johnny Belinda); Claire Trevor for Best Supporting Actress (film: Key Largo); Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for Best Music/Song (Buttons and Bows from the Bob Hope/Jane Russell flick, The Paleface). And although Olivier won the Best Actor Oscar, Humphrey Bogart was superb as the paranoid, and ultimately, homicidal Fred C. Dobbs in Sierra Madre.

1958 - Elvis Presley reported to local draft board 86 in Memphis, TN. He became US 53310761. Oddly, since Elvis was now ?government property? serving his time in the Army, Uncle Sam stood to lose an estimated $500,000 in lost taxes each year that Private Presley was in the Army.

1986 - The 58th Academy Awards show was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. It took three hosts (Alan Alda, Jane Fonda and Robin Williams) to handle the MC duties this time. The Best Picture was Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, producer). It also won Best Director (Sydney Pollack); other Oscars went to Kiss of the Spider Woman (Best Actor: William Hurt); The Trip to Bountiful (Best Actress: Geraldine Page); Cocoon (Best Supporting Actor: Don Ameche - his first Oscar) and Prizzi?s Honor (Best Supporting Actress: Anjelica Huston). Other memorable movies in 1985 (some Oscar winners, some not): The Color Purple (11 nominations - no Oscars), Back to the Future, Ladyhawke, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Agnes of God, Silverado and Witness, to name just a few...

1989 - At four minutes past midnight, the Exxon Valdez, a 987-foot supertanker loaded with 1,264,155 barrels of North Slope crude oil, ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. 11.2 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea, mucking up nearly five hundred miles of shoreline. Thousands of workers spent three years cleaning things up. The costs exceeded $2.1 billion. It is estimated that some 300,000 birds were killed. Some common forms of algae were reduced by half. 2,650 sea otters in Prince William Sound were killed. The spill was even damaging to south central Alaska?s fisheries, with the local population suffering economic, social and psychological consequences that lasted for years. Exxon wound up paying well over a billion dollars in civil settlements and fines.

1997 - At Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) awarded prizes for the best of the movie biz in 1996, Comedian/actor Billy Crystal hosted this 69th Academy Awards show. Best Picture: The English Patient (Saul Zaentz, producer); Best Director: Anthony Minghella for The English Patient; Best Actor: Geoffrey Rush for Shine; Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Fargo; Best Supporting Actor: Cuba Gooding, Jr. for Jerry Maguire; Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Binoche for The English Patient; Best Music, Song: Andrew Lloyd Webber (music), Tim Rice (lyrics) for You Must Love Me from Evita.

(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com?s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla