Today's Birthdays 11/20

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/20/04 at 7:26pm

Chester Gould 11/20/1900 5/10/1985 - cartoonist: Dick Tracy, source mat'l

Alexandra Danilova 11/20/1903 - 7/13/1997 Russian ballerina, performer - Oh Captain! (Tony Randall, Susan Johnson, Abbe Lane)

Judy Canova 11/20/1913 - 8/5/1983 - performer - Ziegfeld Follies of 1936; Yokel Boy (Buddy Ebsen, tv's The Howdy Doody Show, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Oklahoma Annie

Dulcie Gray 11/20/1919 performer, Wife of Michael Denison (1939 - July 22, 199 his death - An Ideal Husband [loved this production]

Lee Guber 11/20/1920 producer, husband of Barbara Walters (1963 - 1976) divorced, husband of Lois Wyse (1982 - 198 his death, husband of Edna Shanis (1950?) - The Happiest Girl in the World (Lanie Kazan, Cyril Ritchard, Bruce Yarnell); Sherry!; Lorelei; Bring Back Birdie; Rags (Teresa Stratas, Larry Kert, Andy Gale, Judy Kuhn, Dick Latessa, Marcia Lewis, Lonny Price, Terrence Mann); Camelot

Evelyn Keyes 11/20/1919 - performer - tv's Before I Hang, Gone with the Wind, The Jolson Story, The Seven Year Itch, Return to Salem’s Lot; author: autobiography: Scarlet O’Hara’s Younger Sister

Phyllis Thaxter 11/20/1921 - performer - film's Superman: The Movie, Jim Thorpe: All American [wonderful movie!), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

Kaye Ballard Nov 20, 1926 performer - The Golden Apple; Carnival! (Anna Maria Alberghetti, James Mitchell, Jerry Orbach, Anita Gillette); The Beast in Me; Molly (Bert Convy); tv's & film's What a Dummy, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, The Perry Como Show, The Mothers-in-Law, Henry Morgan’s Great Talent Hunt, The Doris Day Show

Estelle Parsons 11/20/1927 performer Happy Hunting; Whoop-Up; Beg, Borrow or Steal (Larry Parks, Eddie Bracken, Claiborne Carey, Betty Garrett); Ready When You Are, C.B.! (Julie Harris, Arlene Golonka, Lou Antonio, Betty Walker); And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little; Miss Margarida's Way; Shimada (Ben Gazzara, Ellen Burstyn, Mako); 1994 The Shadow Box (Marlo Thomas, Mercedes Ruehl) - Academy Award-winning actress: Bonnie and Clyde; Dick Tracy, For Pete’s Sake, Don’t Drink the Water, Roseanne, Backstairs at the White House

Samuel E. Wright 11/20/1948 performer - orig JC Superstar; Over Here! (Maxene & Patty Andrews, Ann Reinking, John Travolta, Treat Williams); Tap Dance Kid; Welcome to the Club (Marilyn Sokol, Jodi Benson, Bill Buell, Sally Mayes [debut], Terri White); Mule Bone; The Lion King

Alison Bevan 11/20/1959 performer, Wife of Michael McCormick - City of Angels [replacement]; Steel Pier (Gregory Harrison, Karen Ziemba, Debra Monk, Kristen Chenowith)

Gary Schwartz 11/20/1964 performer - 1990 Fiddler on the Roof; Kiss of the Spider Woman (Chita, Merle Louise [great gal, had dinner w/her last wkend], Anthony Crivello, Brent Carver)

Devanand N. Janki 11/20/1969 Choreographer, Performer, Production Crew - 1996 The King and I; Side Show

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1934 Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour opens tonight at Maxine Elliot's Theatre. It's lesbian theme causes a stire, but Brooks Atkinson calls the play "venomously tragic." The stars are Ann Revere, Katherine Emery, and Florence McGee in this show that will run for 691 performances.

1943 An interesting wartime artifact, Winged Victory, opens a 212-performance run at the 44th Street Theatre. Moss Hart writes the script and Sgt. David Rose writes the music for this military-themed play with music, the only Broadway show ever produced by The U.S. Army Air Forces.

1946 Lillian Hellman has another show on Broadway on this day in theatre history. This time, she directs her play, Another Part of the Forest, which opens tonight at the Fulton Theatre. It revisits some of the characters from The Little Foxes earlier in their lives. The cast includes Patricia Neal, Mildred Dunnock, and Leo Genn in the 23-week run.

1952 George Axelrod's comedy The Seven Year Itch, about a married man longing to stray with a beautiful neighbor, opens tonight at the Fulton Theatre. The cast includes Tom Ewell and Vanessa Brown in the role that Marilyn Monroe would immortalize in the 1955 movie (which also starred Ewell). This Broadway production would run for an incredible 1,141 performances and win Ewell a Tony Award for Best Dramatic Actor.

1957 The Rope Dancers, directed by Peter Hall, with a cast including Siobhan McKenna, Art Carney, Joan Blondell and Theodore Bikel begins a 24-week run. This drama by Morton Wishengrad deals with the lives of a New York tenement family at the turn of the century.

1966 "Life is beautiful" inside the Broadhurst Theatre tonight as Cabaret opens. Joel Gray starred in the hugely successful musical that is an adaptation of both the play, I Am a Camera, and the novel, Goodbye to Berlin, (adapted by Masteroff from Isherwood) with a score by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the show will run for 1,165 performances. It will go on to win seven Tony Awards including Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for Joel Grey. The 1997 Roundabout Theatre Company's revival will star Alan Cumming and win a Tony Award for Best Revival.

1989 Final Broadway opening for two titans, Rex Harrison and Glynis Johns, in a revival of W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle. It runs 208 performances at the Ambassador Theatre.

1990 James Clavell's best-selling novel Shogun becomes an unsuccessful musical, debuting tonight at the Marquis Theatre. The Paul Chihara-John Driver show, with elaborate costumes and sets, stars Philip Casnoff. "Pillowing" is the only song in a Broadway musical this season in praise of sexual toys: "It never tires of women like a lazy, jaded man."

Henry IV 11/20/2003 - Ethan Hawke, Michael Hayden, Dana Ivey, Kevin Kline, Audra McDonald

ON THIS DAY IN:

On Nov. 20, 1945, 24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

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

Milla