Today's Birthday 3/15

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/15/04 at 1:27pm

George Brent 03/15/1904 - May 26, 1979 husband of Constance Worth (1937 - 1937) divorced, Ann Sheridan (1942 - 1943) divorced, Ruth Chatterton (1932 - 1934) divorced, performer - Love, Honor and Betray (Clark Gable, Glenda Farrell, Alice Brady); film's my fav's Dark Victory & The Spiral Staircase

Margaret Webster 03/15/1905 - Nov 13, 1972 daughter of Ben Webster & May Whitty, performer - 1938 Hamelt (Maurice Evans); 1940 12th Night (Helen Hayes, Maurice Evans); 1941 Macbeth (Judith Anderson, Maurice Evans); A Pound on Demand / Androcles and the Lion (Victor Jory, Anne Jackson, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Eli Wallach); Hedda Gabler (Herbert Berghof, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Eva Le Gallienne); The Aspern Papers (Wendy Hiller, Maurice Evans)

Macdonald Carey 03/15/1913 - performer - origs Lady in the Dark; Anniversary Waltz (Kitty Carlisle); tv's & film's “Like sands through the hourglass these are the Days of Our Lives”; Comanche Territory, The Rebels, Who is the Black Dahlia, Access Code

Charles Randall 03/15/1923 performer - Enter Laughing (Alan Arkin, Vivian Blaine, Sylvia Sidney); The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald

Judd Hirsch 03/15/1935 performer - Knock Knock; Chapter Two; Talley's Folly; I'm Not Rappaport; Conversations With My Father; A Thousand Clowns; tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actor: Taxi [1980-81,1982-83]; Ordinary People, The Good-bye People, Running on Empty

Thommie Walsh 03/15/1950 Choreographer, Director, Performer, Artistic Crew - Seesaw; Rachael Lily Rosenbloom and Don't You Ever Forget It [never officially opened]; A Chorus Line; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; The 1940's Radio Hour; A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine; Nine; Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? (Russ Thacker, Jason Graae); The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; My One And Only; My Favorite Year

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1926 Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock has its U.S. premiere at Broadway's Mayfair Theatre. It runs 74 performances.

1934 The New Faces of 1934 revue introduces future stars Henry Fonda and Imogene Coca.

1941 The Trojan Women - Cameron Mitchell, Walter Slezak, Dame May Whitty & her daughter Margaret Webster

1950 The Consul - Mary Powers, Cornell MacNeil

1956 Under the tutelage of Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews changes from a poor flower girl to My Fair Lady. Cathleen Nesbitt and Stanley Holloway are also in the cast of this Lerner and Loewe musical adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Cecil Beaton designs the costumes for the 2,717 performances at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York.

1959 - The musical, No Strings, opened on Broadway at the 54th Street Theatre. Richard Kiley and Diahann Carroll starred in the show. Also featured was the show’s composer in an acting role, singing his own lyrics. The composer was Richard Rodgers.

1962 There's No Strings attached to Richard Rodgers' score for this tuner. Rodgers supplied his own lyrics for this musical starring Richard Kiley and Diahann Carroll. There will be 580 performances.

1964 To honor Shakespeare's 400th anniversary, the New York Philharmonic presents an Homage to Shakespeare. William Ball directs a stellar cast that includes John Gielgud, Edith Evans and Margaret Leighton interpreting various selections.

1970 Purlie - Cleavon Little, Melba Moore

1979 Spokesong - John Lithgow, Maria Tucci, Virginia Vestoff

1987 Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express rolls into the Gershwin Theatre. The roller skate spectacle with John Napier's set features Broadway's original Annie, Andrea McArdle.

ON THIS DAY IN:

44 B.C. Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of nobles that included Brutus and Cassius.

1948 - Sir Laurence Olivier was on the cover of LIFE magazine for his starring role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

1964 Actress Elizabeth Taylor married actor Richard Burton in Montreal.

1971 - CBS television made a major announcement, saying that it was dropping The Ed Sullivan Show from its program line-up after 23 years on the network. The Sullivan show, a Sunday night fixture, presented everyone from the Beatles and dancing bears to a talking mouse named Topo Gigio, plus anyone and anything in between. It was the longest-running show in television history. “Kissa-me goo-night, Eddie...” (The final show aired June 6, 1971.)

1977 - The first episode of Eight is Enough was aired on ABC-TV. Mark Hamill starred in the opening show and, for a very few shows, as son, David. After talking to star, Dick Van Patten, Hamill said, “Enough!” He left to star in the motion picture, Star Wars as Luke Skywalker, gaining considerable notoriety from the George Lucas film epic.

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

Milla