Today's Birthdays 10/26

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 10/26/03 at 11:14am

Edward Harrigan 10/26/1844 - 1911 composer, writer, performer, rather of Nedda Harrigan & William Harrigan, grandfather of Ann Connolly - half of the iconic 1880s writing and performing team Harrigan and Hart, is born today. He and Tony Hart will create the popular Mulligan Guards characters reflecting New York's immigrant polyglot. He'll become the subject of a 1985 Broadway musical Harrigan 'n Hart.

H. B. Warner Oct 26, 1875 - Dec 21, 1958 brother of J.B. Warner, performer - tv's & film's Bulldog Drummond series, It’s a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Ten Commandments

Mahalia Jackson 10/26/1911 Jan 27, 1972 - singer, source material - Truly Blessed (Queen Esther Marrow)

Jackie Coogan 10/26/1914 - 3/1/1984 performer - The Kid: 1st full-length movie to star a child; Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, College Swing, Outlaw Women, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Escape Artist, The Addams Family, McKeever & The Colonel; TV panelist: Pantomime Quiz; cause of the Coogan Act requiring parent’s of child actors to put their earnings in trust

Bob Hoskins 10/16/1942 - performer - film's Hook, Brazil, The Cotton Club, Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Mermaids

Maureen Anderman 10/26/1946 Wife of Frank Converse, performer - The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (Julie Harris); 1975 Hamlet (Sam Waterston); 1976 Virginia Wolf (Colleen Dewhurst, Ben Gazzara); 1980 The Man Who Came to Dinner; 1981 Macbeth (Philip Anglim, Dana Ivy)

Hillary Rodham Clinton 10/26/1947 - attorney; 1st Lady: wife of 42nd U.S. President William J. Clinton

Rondi Reed 10/26/1952 performer, musician - origs The Grapes of Wrath; The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

D. W. Moffett 10/26/1954 performer - The Boys of Winter (Matt Dillon, Ving Rhames, Wesley Snipes)

Rita Wilson 10/26/1958 - performer, producer, wife of actor Tom Hanks - The Bonfire of the Vanities, Barbarians at the Gate, Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts, If These Walls Could Talk, That Thing You Do!, From the Earth to the Moon, Runaway Bride, The Story of Us; MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING(!!!!)

1962 - Cary Elwes 10/26/1962 performer - Twister, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Hot Shots!, Days of Thunder, Glory, my favorite: THE PRINCESS BRIDE ["As you wish."(!!!)]

Thomas Cavanagh 10/26/1968 performer - 1989 Shenandoah ([the wonderful] John Cullum); tv's ED

Anthony Rapp 10/26/1971 performer - The Little Prince and the Aviator (Michael York); Precious Sons (Ed Harris, Judith Ivey); Rent; 1999 You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1931 Opening night of Mourning Becomes Electra, Eugene O'Neill's epic nine-hour reimagining of the Greek Oresteia as a saga of the American Civil War. Starring Alla Nazimova and Earle Larimore, it runs 150 performances at the Guild Theatre (now the Virginia).

Liliom 10/26/1932 - Joseph Schildkraut

1946 A revival of Playboy of the Western World, by J.M. Synge, opens tonight at the Booth Theatre. Maureen Stapleton and Julie Harris are both making their Broadway debut in this production. The show has Burgess Meredith as its star, and the staging is done by Guthrie McClintic. The show will run 10 weeks.

1955 Opening night of The Chalk Garden, Enid Bagnold's comedy, starring Siobhan McKenna, Marian Seldes, Gladys Cooper and Fritz Weaver.

1965 David Carradine plays the Inca king whose country was attacked by conquistador Francisco Pizarro, played by Christopher Plummer, in Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun, which opens tonight at the American National Theatre & Academy Theatre (ANTA). John Dexter directs this show. My friend Judd Jones also appeared in this show.

The Little Foxes 10/26/1967 - Anne Bancroft, Geo. C. Scott, Richard A. Dysart, E.G. Marshall, Austin Pendleton, Maria Tucci

2000 Opening night of David Yazbek's The Full Monty, a musical adaptation of the hit British film about a group of unemployed blue-collar workers who become male strippers in order to pay their bills. Featuring Patrick Wilson, Andre De Shields, Kathleen Freeman and Emily Skinner, it runs 770 performances at the O'Neill Theatre.

2001 Elaine Stritch begins performances on her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the show will earn raves, move to Broadway, and eventually win the 2002 Tony Award for Outstanding Special Event.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1858 - The rotary motion-washing machine was patented by Hamilton E. Smith of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1881 - Doc Holliday joined the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, AZ. They went up against members of the Clanton gang of suspected cattle rustlers. Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton opened the battle -- the most famous gunfight of the Old West -- with Doc shooting Billy in the chest. Less than thirty seconds later, three men lay dead and three were wounded. Doc had shot each of the dead cowboys at least once. Virgil had been shot in the leg and Morgan through both shoulders. Holliday was wounded in the hip. Only Wyatt Earp survived the fight untouched.

1935 - A talented twelve-year-old sang on Wallace Beery’s NBC radio show on NBC. Judy Garland delighted the appreciative audience. The young girl would soon be in pictures and at the top of stardom. It would be only four years before Ms. Garland (George Jessel gave her the name, thinking it would be better than her own, Frances Gumm) captured the hearts of moviegoers everywhere with her performance as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

1955 - The Village Voice was first published. The Voice was New York City’s ‘underground’ (alternative) newspaper.

1970 - Only 22 years old, Garry Trudeau began his comic strip, Doonesbury, in 28 newspapers across the U.S. The sometimes controversial strip is now in hundreds of papers and has spawned a publishing empire of books and assorted items.

1974 Today is the first day of rehearsals for the musical Chicago. Choreographer-director Bob Fosse will be hospitalized shortly after, though, and the opening of the show will be postponed until June 3, 1976. Original cast members Chita Rivera, Gwen Verdon and Jerry Orbach are all present for this first rehearsal.

1993 Harold Rome dies today. A composer and lyricist, his shows include Call Me Mister, Wish You Were Here, and I Can Get it for You Wholesale, which starred a young Barbra Streisand. Also Talulah Bankhead's music director.

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

Milla