Today's Birthdays 11/14

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/13/08 at 7:42pm

Claude Monet 11/14/1840 - 12/5/1926 - artist: Water Lilies, La Grenouillere, Impression: Sunrise, Old St. Lazare Station, Paris

Aaron Copland 11/14/1900 - 12/2/1990 Academy Award-winning composer: film score: The Heiress [1948]; Of Mice and Men, Our Town, Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man; ballet score: Billy the Kid; Pulitzer Prize-winner: Appalachian Spring [1945]

Dick Powell 11/14/1904 - 1/2/1963 performer; Married June Allyson (19 August 1945 - 2 January 1963) (his death) 1 child, Joan Blondell (19 September 1936 - 14 July 1944) (divorced) 1 child, Maude Maund (1925 - 1927) (divorced) - film's & tv's Too Busy to Work, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, Gold Diggers of 1935, Gold Diggers of 1937, Hollywood Hotel, Murder, My Sweet, Cry Danger, Four Star Playhouse, Susan Slept Here; TV Host: The Best in Mystery, Zane Grey Theater, The Dick Powell Show (1961)

Louise Brooks 11/14/1906 - Aug 8, 1985 performer - film's Fioretta (Lionel Atwill, Fanny Brice); Louder, Please (Percy Kilbride, Lee Tracy); film's Pandora's Box

Rosemary DeCamp 11/14/1910 - 2/20/2001 performer - film's & tv's Rhapsody in Blue, On Moonlight Bay, The Bob Cummings Show, That Girl, The Life of Riley

Johnny Desmond [Giovanni Alfredo de Simone] 11/14/1919 - 9/6/1985 performer - Say Darling (Vivian Blaine, David Wayne, Robert Downing, Elliott Gould, Peter Howard, Robert Morse); Funny Girl [replacement]; tv's & film's Escape from San Quentin; Blanksy's Beauties (Nancy Walker, Scott Baio)

Brian Keith 11/14/1921 - Jun 24, 1997 performer - Mister Roberts; Darkness at Noon; Out West of Eighth (Barbara Baxley, Dennis Weaver); tv's & film's Family Affair, Hardcastle & McCormick, Heartland, The Westerner, Crusader, Centennial, The Brian Keith Show, Walter and Emily, Nevada Smith, The Loneliest Runner, The Young Philadelphians, my fav: The Parent Trap

Theodore Sorel 11/14/1936 - performer - Horowitz and Mrs. Washington (Esther Rolle, Sam Levene); A Little Family Business (Angela Lansbury, John McMartin, Sally Stark); The School for Scandal (Tony Randall, Kate Forbes); tv's & film's The Guiding Light; Lenny; Network

Sandahl Bergman 11/14/1951 performer - Gigi (Alfred Drake, Karin Wolfe, Maria Karnilova, Daniel Massey, Agnes Moorehead, Bjarne Buchtrup); Mack & Mabel; Dancin' (Wayne Cilento, Ann Reinking)

Gregg Burge 11/14/1957 - Jul 4, 1998 Choreographer, Performer, a dear friend at Juilliard, so sad that this talented dancer died so young. - Sophisticated Ladies (Mercedes Ellington, Gregory Hines, Phyllis Hyman, Mercer Ellington); Song and Dance (Bernadette Peters, Scott Wise); 1990 Oh, Kay! (Tamara Tunie Bouquett); tv's & film's A Chorus Line; The Electric Company; School Daze (Ossie Davis, Spike Lee, Laurence Fishburne, Branford Marsalis, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell)

Michael Sutherland Lynch 11/14/1964 performer, Husband of Tia Riebling - Les Misérables [replacement]; Jerome Robbins' Broadway

Danny Gurwin 11/14/1972 performer - 2005 Little Women; replacement in: The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Full Monty, Urinetown

Russell Tovey Nov 14, 1981 performer - The History Boys; tv's & film's The History Boys; Silent Witness; Doctor Who

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1905 Blanche Bates is Minnie, sweetheart of the mines in Girl of the Golden West. She tends a saloon, fugitive lover and pursuing sheriff. Writer, director, producer David Belasco was no stranger to the subject, having worked as an actor in Virginia City, Nevada, during the Comstock Lode boom. Puccini would later adapt the story into the opera, "La Fanciulla del West." Jeannette MacDonald & Nelson Eddie would make it into a film.

1945 Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Hussey star as a presidential candidate trying to present a happy facade to voters with his estranged wife in State of the Union. Lindsay & Crouse's play opens a 765-performance run at the Hudson Theatre today. It will go on to win the 1946 Pulitzer Prize and be made into a film by Frank Capra, with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. (THIS is my fav. Tracy/Hepburn movie. It screams to be musicalized! But until then, why the heck isn't the play up on the boards?)

1950 The witches of Bell, Book, and Candle begin their brew. John Van Druten's play stars Lilli Palmer as a witch falling in love with mortal Rex Harrison. The run spans 233 performances at the Barrymore Theatre. Isn't this being musicalized? Done?

1971 Just a year after they worked together on Company, playwright George Furth and director Michael Bennett team up for Twigs, a program of one-act plays featuring Sada Thompson. It opens at the Broadhurst Theatre and runs 289 performances, winning Thompson a 1972 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play.

1977 Anne Bancroft is directed by Arthur Penn in the play, Golda. This documentary-style drama about Israel's former prime minister runs 13 weeks.

1993 Robert Schenkkan's The Kentucky Cycle, three plays tracing the place of Kentucky in American history, 1775-1975, opens at the Royale Theatre. It was one of the few plays to win the Pulitzer Prize before it opened in New York, and New York audiences did not take to it. Despite the presence of Stacy Keach in major roles, it closes after just 33 performances.

1996 The spirit of Bob Fosse infuses a bare-bones revival of Kander & Ebb's Chicago that would become the runaway smash of the season. Director Walter Bobbie, choreographer Ann Reinking staging the show "in the style of Bob Fosse," and actors James Naughton and Bebe Neuwirth, all took home Tonys, as did the show itself. By fall 2003, the show had hit the 2,900-performance mark and a film adaptation won the 2003 Oscar for Best Picture.

2000 Betrayal with Juliette Binoche & Liev Schreiber

ON THIS DATE IN:

1889 Inspired by Jules Verne, New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) set out to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She succeeded, making the trip in 72 days.

1922 The British Broadcasting Corp. began its domestic radio service

1943 - Leonard Bernstein replaced an indisposed Bruno Walter as conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Thus began a legendary career and worldwide appreciation for Bernstein’s many compositions with the orchestra.

1995 The U.S. government instituted a partial shutdown, closing national parks and museums while government offices operated with skeleton crews.

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

Milla