Today's Birthdays 11/30

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 11/30/03 at 5:40pm

Jonathan Swift 11/30/1667 - 10/19/1745 Anglo-Irish author and satirist, source mat'l - Gulliver's Travels

Samuel Langhorne Clemens - better known as author Mark Twain 11/30/1835 - 4/21/1910, source mat'l - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, The Prince and the Pauper; A Connecticut Yankee (William Gaxton, Paul Everton, Constance Carpenter); The Apple Tree (Based on "The Diary of Adam and Eve" by Mark Twain); Big River; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Donald Ogden Stewart 11/30/1894 - 8/2/1980 American playwright and actor, 1940 Oscar for screenplay adaptation of "The Philadelphia Story" - Holiday; Fine & Dandy

Virginia Mayo 11/30/1920 performer - Banjo Eyes (Eddie Cantor; Jacqueline Susann, Adele Jergens); film's Captain Horatio Hornblower, The Silver Chalice, The West Point Story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, my fave: The Best Years of Our Lives

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. 11/30/1923 - Producer, Performer - What Every Woman Knows (Eva Le Gallienne, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson); The Telephone / The Medium (Marilyn Cotlow, knew her at Peabody, where she taught, fabulous, underrated singer); 1948 Hedda Gabler; film's & tv's The F.B.I., 77 Sunset Strip, Hot Shots!, The Gathering: Part 2, Terror Out of the Sky, Airport ’75, The Legend of Prince Valiant, Hotel; voice of Alfred in Batman-the Animated Series

Shirley Chisholm 11/30/1924 - politician: 1st black woman elected to the U.S. Congress; author; quote: “When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.”

Richard Crenna 11/30/1927 - 1/17/2003 - performer - tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actor: The Rape of Richard Beck, ABC Theatre [1984-85]; Slattery’s People, The Real McCoys, Our Miss Brooks, It Takes Two, All’s Fair, Gabriel’s Fire, Centennial, Sabrina, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Rambo 3, On the Wings of Eagles, The Flamingo Kid, Body Heat, The Sand Pebbles, Pride of St. Louis, Wrongfully Accused, Judging Amy

Robert Guillaume 11/30/1937 performer - Two On An Island; They Should Have Stood in Bed (Sanford Meisner, Florence Sundstrom); 1976 Guys and Dolls;tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning actor: Soap [1978-79], Benson [1984-85]; Pacific Station, A Good Day to Die, North and South Book 1, The Meteor Man; voice of Det. Catfish: Fish Police*[see footnote]

David Mamet 11/30/1947 husband of Lindsay Crouse, (divorced), husband of Rebecca Pidgeon (1991 - present) writes hard-bitten plays that capture the unique rhythms of speech of working people, including real estate salesmen (Pulitzer-winner Glengarry Glen Ross), movie makers (Speed-the-Plow), academics and feminists (Oleanna) and small-time thieves (American Buffalo) - director: Oleanna, Homicide, House of Games, Things Change; playwright: Hoffa, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, The Verdict, The Postman Always Rings Twice

Lily Knight 11/30/1949 performer - As Is (Jonathan Hadary); The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

Margaret Whitton 11/30/1950 performer - Steaming; The Apple Doesn't Fall...; Marlene (Siân Phillips)

Mandy Patinkin 11/30/1952 The Wild Party; The Secret Garden; The Shadow Box (Geraldine Fitzgerald); Tony Award-winning actor: Evita [1980]; film's, tv's, etc. True Colors, The Doctor, Dick Tracy, Alien Nation, The Princess Bride, Sunday in the Park with George, Yentl, French Postcards, Chicago Hope

Kevin Conroy 11/30/1955 performer - Lolita; Eastern Standard (Anne Meara)

Rebecca Downing 11/30/1962 performer - The Will Rogers Follies; 1993 My Fair Lady (Melissa Errico, Richard Chamberlain)

Mark Deakins 11/30/1962 performer - The Grapes of Wrath

Ben Stiller 11/30/1965 Actor-director- actor: The Ben Stiller Show, Reality Bites, Flirting with Disaster, The Cable Guy, There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Zoolander

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1924 Henry Oscar and Esme Biddle are the leads of Byron by Alice Law, at the Century Theatre in Bayswater, England. In a very small role is someone named Laurence Olivier.

1926 "Give me some men who are stouthearted men," proclaim the singers in the Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II Desert Song, one of the last of the blockbuster operettas. The mysterious and romantic Red Shadow and his rebel band ride over the dunes of North Africa in this musical, which runs 471 performances at the Casino Theatre and tours for much of the next two generations.

1939 Something not-quite-right is going on beneath the surface of Paul Osborn's subtle Morning's at Seven, seemingly a Norman Rockwell portrait of suburban life, which flops after a 44-performance run at the Longacre Theatre. In 1980, audiences figure it out quicker, and a hit revival will run 564 performances.

1955 Rodgers and Hammerstein suffer a rare flop with Pipe Dream, based on John Steinbeck's story of life in a brothel. The show closes after 246 performances (R&H's shortest run) at the Shubert Theatre.

1972 Arthur Miller takes on the Bible, retelling the story of Adam and Eve in his own terms in The Creation of the World and Other Business. But in this case, the flawed father is God, and even the presence of Zoe Caldwell as Eve can't stop the show from closing after just 20 performances at the Shubert Theatre.

1988 Tonight's episode of "Tattinger" on NBC will be titled "Barrymore's," with a cast that includes Elaine Stritch, Blythe Danner, Jerry Stiller, Mary Beth Hurt and cameos by George Abbott and Garson Kanin.

2000 Opening night for Seussical, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's musical that combines many of the stories of children's author Dr. Seuss, including "Horton Hears a Who," "McElligot's Pool" and "The Cat in the Hat" into a single story. Following a bumpy out-of-town tryout in which, for the first time, internet chat strongly affects the box office negatively, the show gets mixed reviews and struggles on for a 198-performance run at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1900 Irish author Oscar Wilde died in Paris at age 46.

1922 - Actress Sarah Bernhardt made her last appearance on the stage. She played in the final performance of Daniel, being presented in Turin, Italy.

1940 - Lucille Ball and Cuban musician Desi Arnaz were married. Lucy filed for divorce the day after their final TV show was filmed in 1960.

1993 President Clinton signed into law the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.


*FISH POLICE: Hallelujah! I knew I wasn't crazy! I've been searching for info on this short-lived prime-time cartoon series. Loved It! If interested, click on link for info.

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

Milla Updated On: 11/30/03 at 05:40 PM