Today's Birthdays 11/29

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/29/04 at 4:59pm

Gaetano Donizetti 11/29/1797 - 4/8/1848 Italian opera composer - The Daughter of the Regiment

Louisa May Alcott 11/29/1832 - 3/6/1888 the American author of the classic "Little Women", source mat'l - Little Women (Carson Davenport) & 2004 musical version

C.S. Lewis 11/29/1898 - 11/22/1963 English writer and scholar, source mat'l - Narnia

Billy Strayhorn 11/29/1915 - 5/31/1967 Orchestrator, Composer, Lyricist - Beggar's Holiday; Bubbling Brown Sugar; Sophisticated Ladies

Michael Kermoyan 11/29/1921 - Sep 21, 1994 performer - Whoop Up; Happy Town (Rita Golden); orig Camelot; The Happiest Girl in the World; Tovarich; Something More! (Barbara Cook, Paula Kelly); Anya (Constance Towers); The Guide

Dagmar 11/29/1921 - Oct 9, 2001 performer - Laffing Room Only (Betty Garrett, Dolores (Dodi) Goodman, Buddy Rogers); Burlesque (Bert Lahr, Bobby Barry)

Laurie Main 11/29/1929 performer - First Impressions (Polly Bergen, Hermione Gingold, Stuart Damon); Jolly's Progress (Eartha Kitt, Wendall Cory); Lord Pengo (Charles Boyer, Brian Bedford, Agnes Moorehead); 13 Rue de l'Amour (Louis Jourdan

Diane Ladd 11/29/1932 performer, mother of Laura Dern, wife of Bruce Dern (1960 - 1969) divorced - Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights (Louis Gossett, Cicely Tyson); A Texas Trilogy: Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander; film's, etc. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Rambling Rose, The Cemetery Club, Chinatown, Father Hood, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, The Grace Kelly Story, Desperate Lives, I Married a Centerfold, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Alice

Frank Galati 11/29/1943 Writer, Director - Grapes of Wrath (Gary Sinise); 1994 The Glass Menagerie; Ragtime; Seussical (Was replaced in previews)

Hinton Battle 11/29/1956 performer - Something Different (Linda Lavin, Claudia McNeil); The Wiz; Sophisticated Ladies; The Tap Dance Kid; Miss Saigon

Andrew McCarthy 11/29/1962 performer - The Boys of Winter (Ving Rhames, Matt Dillon, Wesley Snipes, Doug Hara)

Kim Delaney 11/29/1961 performer - tv's, etc. Emmy Award-winning actress: NYPD Blue [1997]; Philly, All My Children, The Delta Force, Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit, The Drifter, Darkman II: The Return of Durant, Mission to Mars

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1825 - Rossini’s Barber of Seville was presented in New York City. It was the first Italian opera to be presented in the United States.

1932 - The Gay Divorcee opened in New York City. The Cole Porter musical featured the classic, Night and Day.

1948 - The first opera to be televised was broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Othello, by Verdi, was presented over WJZ-TV in New York

Harold 11/29/1962 - Anthony Perkins, John Fiedler

ON THIS DAY IN:

1924 Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels

1981 Actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, Calif., at age 43.

1986 Actor Cary Grant died at age 82. Grant, one of the most debonair of Hollywood’s leading men, left us with many great cinematic performances: Night and Day, Arsenic and Old Lace, She Done Him Wrong, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, some more of my favs Mr. Lucky, Penny Serenade, My Favorite Wife

2001 Rock musician George Harrison of the Beatles died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.

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

Milla