Today's Birthdays 11/28

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/29/03 at 12:44am

1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the beginning of 1930 (including A Connecticut Yankee and Good Boy) before he's whisked off to Hollywood to do films like the original 42nd Street. His Broadway swan song will be 1971's No, No, Nanette.

Gloria Grahame 11/28/1923 film's & tv's Academy Award-winning actress: The Bad and the Beautiful [1952]; Oklahoma!, It’s a Wonderful Life, Not as a Stranger, Rich Man, Poor Man-Book I; died Oct 5, 1981

Hope Lange 11/28/1931 performer, wife of Charles Hollerith, Jr. (1986 - present), wife of Alan J. Pakula (1963 - 1971) divorced, wife of Don Murray (1956 - 1961) divorced - The Patriots; The Supporting Cast; tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actress: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir [1968-69, 1969-70]; Cooperstown, Ford: The Man & the Machine, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Death Wish, The Love Bug, Pocketful of Miracles, The Young Lions, Peyton Place, Bus Stop

Ed Harris 11/28/1950 performer - Precious Sons; Taking Sides; Riders of the Purple Sage, Nixon, Apollo 13, The Firm, Glengarry Glen Ross, China Moon, Places in the Heart, The Right Stuff, Knightriders

S. Epatha Merkerson 11/28/1952 performer - Tintypes; The Piano Lesson

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

A Place in the Sun 11/28/1918

1926 Ethel Barrymore stars in W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife, which stays for 295 constant performances at Maxine Elliott's Theatre.

1932 Fred Astaire has his final Broadway opening night in Cole Porter's Gay Divorce, which bows at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and lasts 248 performances. When it is filmed, the Hollywood Hayes Office rules that divorce can not be gay (as in cheerful)... so the title is changed to Gay Divorcee.

Revenge with Music 11/28/1934

1939 Swingin' the Dream , with a cast including Louis Armstrong, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, and Butterfly McQueen opens at the Center Theatre in New York. Erik Charell directs his and Gilbert Seldes' musical, a swing version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

1943 Lovers and Friends by Dodie Smith opens for a 21 week-run at the Plymouth Theatre. The stars are Katharine Cornell and Raymond Massey, with direction by Gutherie McClintic.

1945, Strange Fruit blossoms under the direction of Jose Ferrer. Lillian Smith adapts her own novel, with help from her sister. The cast at the Royale Theatre includes Eugenia Rawls, Murray Hamilton and Ralph Meeker.

I Am a Camera 11/28/1951

1956 Bells Are Ringing , starring Judy Holliday and Sidney Chaplin, opens at the Shubert Theatre. This production is also rung by the likes of Comden and Green supplying the book,Jule Styne the score, Bob Fosse the choreography, and Jerome Robbins pulling the strings. It will run 924 performances.

Look Homeward Angel 11/28/1957

Via Galactica 11/28/1972

2001 Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's musical Roadside opens at York Theatre Company. They briefly have two musicals on New York stages: Both Roadside and their long-running phenomenon The Fantasticks will close within weeks of each other in early 2002.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1988 - Picasso’s Acrobat and Young Harlequin brought £21 million at Christie’s in London. The painting was one of many that Adolf Hitler had sold in 1939 to ‘cleanse’ Germany of the disturbing images created by painters such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall.

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

Milla