Today's Birthdays 12/20

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 12/20/04 at 5:46pm

Irene Dunne 12/20/1898 - 9/4/1990 performer; 1 of my very fav actresses - orig Irene [replacement]; The Clinging Vine (Peggy Wood); Your's Truly; She's My Baby (Bea Lillie, Clifton Webb); Luckee Girl; film's Leathernecking, Cimarron, Back Street, Magnificent Obsession, Roberta, Show Boat, Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, A Guy Named Joe, Anna and the King of Siam, Life with Father, I Remember Mama, My Favorite Wife, It Grows on Trees; Alternate Delegate to the United Nations; Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award [1985]

Dennis Morgan (Stanley Morner) 12/20/1908 - Sep 7, 1994 performer - film's 21 Beacon Street, Pearl of the South Pacific, It’s a Great Feeling, Christmas in Connecticut, The Great Ziegfeld, Two Guys from Milwaukee, Desert Song, Kitty Foyle, My Wild Irish Rose

George Roy Hill 12/20/1921 - Dec 27, 2002 director - Look Homeward Angel (Anthony Perkins, Jo Van Fleet, Arthur Hill, Arthur Storch, Arthur Storch); Greenwillow; Period of Adjustment; Henry, Sweet Henry; tv's & film's Funny Farm, The World According to Garp, A Little Romance, Slap Shot, The Sting, Slaughterhouse Five, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, The World of Henry Orient, Toys in the Attic, Period of Adjustment, Min & Bill, Kraft Television Theatre

John Spencer 12/20/1946 performer - Boom Boom Room (Charlotte Rae, Charles Durning, Madeline Kahn, Robert Loggia); Execution of Justice (Wesley Snipes, Stanley Tucci); TV West Wing

Gordon Stanley 12/20/1951 performer - Onward Victoria (Jill Eikenberry ; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Into The Light; Into the Light (Dean Jones); Teddy and Alice; Meet Me in St. Louis; Beauty and the Beast; Ragtime

Jenny Agutter 12/20/1952 performer - Breaking The Code (Derek Jacobi, Robert Sean Leonard); tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actress: The Snow Goose [1971-72]; Logan’s Run, An American Werewolf in London, Child’s Play

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1912 Laurette Taylor stars in Peg O' My Heart, written and directed by her husband, J. Hartley Manners. This story of a winsome orphan becomes a vehicle for Taylor, and she will revive it often over the years.

1934 Katharine Cornell produces a starry Romeo and Juliet at the Martin Beck Theatre. She stars alongside Basil Rathbone, Orson Welles, Brian Aherne and Edith Evans. It runs 77 performances.

1951 Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh play Shakespeare's voluptuary tragic lovers in Antony and Cleopatra at the Ziegfeld Theatre. It stays for 66 performances.

1968 Bernadette Peters and Tamara Long are Dames at Sea at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre. George Haimsohn and Robin Miller's book and lyrics spoof old musical films. Jim Wise provides the score.

1972 Jack Albertson and Sam Levene play feuding old vaudevillians in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. It opens a 538-performance run today at the Broadhurst Theatre.

1981 Michael Bennett's Dreamgirls opens on this date. With book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger, the production will serve as a star vehicle for Jennifer Holliday, whose legendery performance of Effie won her a Tony Award. The musical will run more than 1500 performances.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1946 The Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life," starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, had a preview showing for charity at New York City's Globe Theatre, a day before its official premiere.

1968 Author John Steinbeck died at age 66.

1973 - Singer Bobby Darin died following open-heart surgery at the age of 37. He left a legacy of memories in rock ’n’ roll and pop tunes, as well as on television and in movies (even an Oscar nomination for his role in Captain Newman, M.D.). The story of Darin being groomed to replace Frank Sinatra at Capitol Records is absolutely true. Unfortunately, Capitol didn’t think the grooming was going so well, and withheld many of Darin’s songs for many years; releasing them in a compilation CD in 1995. Good stuff to listen to: Splish Splash, Queen of the Hop, Dream Lover, Mack the Knife, Beyond the Sea, If I Were a Carpenter, etc. At the end, Darin, who had recorded for Atco, Capitol and Atlantic Records had just begun recording for Motown.

1999 The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex.

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

Milla